The Allahabad High Court has said that the objective of Uttar Pradesh’s law against religious conversions was to “sustain the spirit of secularism” in the country.

The High Court made the statement in an August 9 order rejecting the bail application of a man named Ajeem, who was accused of having pressured a Hindu woman to convert to Islam and marry him in the Budaun district.

The police booked the man under the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, as well as under provisions of the Indian Penal Code related to voluntarily causing hurt, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace and criminal intimidation.

Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal, in his order, said that the objective behind enforcing the anti-conversion law was “to guarantee religious freedom to all persons which reflects the social harmony and spirit of India”.

The judge noted that the Constitution gives citizens the right to profess, practice and propagate their religion. “However, the individual right to freedom of conscience and religion cannot be extended to construe a collective right to proselytise, the right to religious freedom belongs equally to the person converting and the individual sought to be converted,” he said.

The High Court said that the allegations against Ajeem indicated that a provision of the anti-conversion law that prohibits religious conversions by misrepresentation or force was violated. Further, the court said the accused man could not show that any application was moved before the district magistrate stating that the woman wanted to convert to Islam before their marriage – which was a requirement under the Act.

While the Uttar Pradesh government has claimed that the Act only prohibits religious conversion by force or fraud, legal experts and activists have contended that it curbs freedom of conscience and encourages vigilante violence.

Experts have also pointed out that the law is based on claims of “love jihad” – a widely-debunked Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslim men lure Hindu women into romantic relationships in order to convert them to Islam.

The case

Ajeem, who has been in jail since June 27 last year, had sought bail before the High Court, claiming that he had been falsely implicated. He claimed that the woman had left her home on her own to be with him.

The accused man further contended that the woman, in her statement before a magistrate, had stated that she got married to him.

The prosecution, however, claimed that the woman’s statement before the magistrate clearly showed that she was being coerced to accept Islam. It also alleged that the accused man shot videos of the woman, blackmailed her and pressured her to marry him.

The woman alleged that she was being forced to convert to Islam, eat non-vegetarian food and “wear clothes as worn by Muslims”.

Also read: UP’s ‘love jihad’ law attacks Muslims, infantalises Hindu women – and curbs Dalit rights