It Allows State to Police and Mediate Choices of Consenting Adults as to Their Life Partner: PILs in Allahabad High Court Against Love Jihad Law

BACKGROUND

• Two PILs have been filed in the Allahabad High Court against the controversial ordinance law passed by the UP Government in November this year, to prohibit religious conversions in the name of 'love jihad'.

• Earlier, an appeal was recorded by Advocate Saurabh Kumar, testing the established legitimacy of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020.

• All the three pleas are likely to be listed for hearing tomorrow, before a Division Bench of Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Piyush Agrawal. One of the two writ petitions has been filed by one Ajit Singh Yadav, and the other one is filed by a retired government servant, Anand Malviya.

• The Petitioners have submitted that there were no emergent grounds for the Governor to exercise her law-making power under Article 213 of the Constitution.

• The Petitioners called attention to that in one year, around 36,000 inter-faith marriages have been solemnized in India and around 6,000 of such marriages were solemnized in Uttar Pradesh. Notwithstanding, the State neglects to make reference to that the number of such cases represented a danger to the peace circumstance.

• It may be noted that this Ordinance, along with Uttarakhand's Freedom of Religion Act, 2018 have already been challenged before the Supreme Court by Advocates Vishal Thakre, Abhay Singh Yadav and Pranvesh.

• The PIL prays that these laws made in the name of "love jihad" be stated as null and void because "they disturb the basic structure of the Constitution".

WHAT IS LOVE JIHAD?

• Love Jihad can be termed as an Islamophobic term radical Hindu groups use to imply that Muslim men prey on Hindu women to convert them to Islam through marriage.

• An incidence in the video occurred on 5 December in which Bajrang Dal activists gave over the 22-year-elderly person, her better half and his sibling to the police, who at that point sent her to a government shelter and captured the men.

• A new Ordinance which stipulates that anyone wishing to convert must seek approval from the district authorities, gives the state a direct power over the citizens' right to love and choose a spouse.

• It carries a jail term of up to 10 years and offences under it are non-bailable. At least four other BJP-governed states are drafting similar laws against "love jihad".

• Critics have called the law backward and hostile and said it would be utilized as a device to target interfaith couples, particularly contacts between Hindu ladies and Muslim men.

• A petition has also been filed in the Supreme Court, demanding that it be scrapped.

ISSUES RAISED IN PLEA

• It was claimed in many petitions that it has become an overall Phenomenon of the UP Government to practice the force under Article 213.

• It has been expressed in request that in the year 2019-20 around 14 Ordinance has been proclaimed and re-declared by the State.

• It was additionally added that encroachment of Principal of Separation of Powers due to the intensity of leader to give Ordinance which conflicts with the Principal of Separation of Powers as Law making is the area of Legislature.

• Another critical issue raised up by the requests is that the upbraided Ordinance was being spread 'wrongfully' because it is in teeth with a definitive proclamation of the High Court in Salamat Ansari and Ors. v. Province of UP and Ors., whereby a Division Bench overruled the single seat decisions that had objected strict changes for marriage.

• It is additionally claimed that one shrouded reason for the denounced law is to control the sexuality of ladies and treat the human body as a subject of enslavement and it is likewise sex inclinations which bends the activity of the unrestrained choice of the ladies in the matter of choice his/her life accomplice.

• It is presented that the correct strategy for the UP Government would have been to document an allure against the said judgment yet the State continued to "misuse" its forces under Article 348(1) of the Constitution, rather it influences the essential rights to singular self-sufficiency, protection, human nobility and individual freedom ensured under Article 21 of the Constitution.

• is further alleged that one hidden purpose of the impugned ordinance is to control the sexuality of women and treat the human body as a subject of subjugation and it is also gender biases which curves the exercise of the free will of the women in the matter of selection his/her life partner.

• It is submitted that the right course of action for the UP Government would have been to file an appeal against the said judgment but the State proceeded to "abuse" its powers under Article 348(1) of the Constitution, instead it affects the fundamental rights to individual autonomy, privacy, human dignity and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTED MATTERS IN PLEAS

• It is affirmed that after declaration of the criticized Ordinance, the State Police has held up arguments against different couples wedding with their own assent just as the assent of their relatives.

• The Police has pointlessly meddled in the middle of the solemnization of the wedding service and abused their major rights to pick and badgering and criticizing them and their relatives.

• It has been stated that a plain reading of Section 6 of the Impugned Ordinance assumes that only a man will convert a woman and regards women as objects and does not recognise the individual agency of women that stands on an equal footing.

• On the provisions requiring notice to the Magistrate and other follow ups before intended conversion, the plea states, "provisions have the potential to give State Sanction and administrative support to the societal hostilities to the persons intending to have inter-faith marriages for numerous petitions filed in the High Court seeking police protection for inter-faith couples the level of community threat and social ostracism which they have to face.

• The provisions of the ordinance also energize the community groups and reinforce the social asymmetries to further dis-empower an individual."

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF “LOVE JIHAD”?
MENTION YOUR VIEWS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!