The Supreme Court on Friday expunged remarks made by the Allahabad High Court that the majority population would become the minority one day if religious conversions taking place at congregations were not stopped, Bar and Bench reported.

Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal of the High Court made the observations on July 1 while denying the bail petition of a man held under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.

Experts have refuted such claims. They have pointed out that while the Muslim growth rate is higher than that of Hindus, it is steadily coming down because the Muslim fertility rate is dropping. This means that if the existing trends continue, the growth rates of both communities will eventually converge, with their respective populations stabilising not too far from existing levels.

On Friday, a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Manoj Mishra said that the “general observations made by the High Court had no bearing on the facts of the present case and were not required for its disposal”, Live Law reported.

The bench added: “The observations, therefore, shall not be cited in any other case or proceeding in the High Court or in any other court.” It then granted bail to the man in the case.

During the proceedings in the case, Agarwal said that religious congregations where the religion of citizens were being changed should be immediately stopped.

“If this process is allowed to be carried out, the majority population of this country would be in minority one day, and such religious congregations should be immediately stopped where the conversion is taking place and changing the religion of citizen of India,” Agarwal said.

He also said that Article 25 of the Constitution did not provide for religious conversion but “only freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion”.

Under Article 25, “propagation” refers to promoting a religion and not conversion of any person from one faith to another, it had said.