Court in India Questions Anti-Conversion Law

Court in India Questions State’s ‘Anti-Conversion’ Law [Excerpts]

NEW DELHI, September 15 (CDN) — The High Court of northern India’s Himachal Pradesh state on Monday (Sept. 12) questioned one of the many disputed provisions in the state’s “anti-conversion” law in a lawsuit filed by a Christian group.

“One of the two judges immediately recognized that there should be no question of the district magistrate [administrative head] granting permission or conducting an inquiry into whether a person’s faith is genuine,” a representative of the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s (EFI) Advocacy Department, the main petitioner, told Compass.

The source quoted Justice Surjit Singh as saying, “If I am dying and I want to change my religion, will I wait for some babu [official] to tell me I can do it?”

The mandatory provision in the “Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act of 2006” to advise authorities of one’s intended conversion 30 days before one converts was one of the many clauses cited as being “contrary to law, arbitrary and against the basic tenets of jurisprudence” by the petitioners.

A failure to send a prior notice is punishable with a fine of up to 1,000 rupees (US$21).

At the same time, both judges, including Justice Rajiv Sharma, seemed concerned about alleged inducements to convert, “and the biggest hurdle is to overcome this prejudice,” the source added.

The court scheduled the next hearing for Sept. 26, requesting the state’s head attorney to appear before it.

The public-interest lawsuit by the EFI, headed by the Rev. Richard Howell, and Act Now for Harmony and Democracy, a civil society group headed by Shabnam Hashmi, was filed in the High Court in the state capital of Shimla on Feb. 22 with a plea to strike down several sections of the law. Senior Advocate Sudhir Nandrajog appeared before the court.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/india/article_120331.html/