AMN / WEB DESK
The right to religion does not include the right to convert other people to a particular religion, especially through fraud, deception, coercion, allurement and other means, the Home Ministry told the Supreme Court on Monday.
The Ministry said the word ‘propagate’ in Article 25 (right to freedom of religion) does not include the right to convert. It is rather in the nature of a positive right to spread one’s religion by exposition of its tenets.
The Centre’s response came on a plea by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay against fraudulent religious conversion and religious conversion by intimidation, threatening, deceivingly luring through gifts and monetary benefits, as it offends Articles 14, 21, and 25.
The plea claimed that if such conversions were not checked, Hindus would soon become a minority in India.
In an affidavit, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said: “It is submitted that the right to freedom of religion does not include a fundamental right to convert other people to a particular religion. The said right certainly does not include the right to convert an individual through fraud, deception, coercion, allurement or other such means”.
The Central government said the petitioner has highlighted a large number of instances carried out in an organised, systematic and sophisticated manner of conversion of vulnerable citizens in the country through fraud, deception, coercion, allurement or other such means.
It further added that the meaning and purport of the word ‘propagate’ falling under Article 25 of the Constitution was discussed and debated in great detail in the constituent assembly and the inclusion of the said word was passed by the constituent assembly only after the clarification that the fundamental right under Article 25 would not include the right to convert.
The Centre said the apex court has held that the word ‘propagate’ does not envisage the right to convert a person rather is in the nature of the positive right to spread once religion by exposition of its tenets.
“This Court further held that fraudulent or induced conversion impinges upon the right to freedom of conscience of an individual apart from hampering public order and, therefore, the State was well within its power to regulate/restrict the same,” it added.