Gujarat High Court Directs Bharuch District Magistrate To Expedite Process On Application Of Man To Convert

The Bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi issued the aforesaid direction as Petitioner Jignesh Patel submitted before the Court that Bharuch's collector had withheld his application for more than a year, despite SDM's inquiry report (filed in February 2020) establishing that he was under no pressure from anyone to convert to Islam.

As per the report of Times Of India, Patel mentioned in the application that he had been living like a Muslim for six years, including fasting during Ramzan, offering namaz and following other rituals associated with the religion.

As per TOI's another report, Patel claimed that he had been doing so out of his liking towards the religion and there was no force upon him to convert to Islam. He further claimed that he liked Islam as a religion, because it is a monotheistic religion.

His conversion application was supported by an affidavit from Imran Patel, the person who was to preside over the originally scheduled conversion on January 1, 2020, however, the district collector never responded to his request, Patel told the high court.

As per the report of PTI, Petitioner Jignesh Patel's lawyer M. T. Saiyad informed that Patel's application seeking permission of the Collector at Bharuch was pending for more than a year.

The only prayer sought in the plea was to direct the respondent to decide application dated 26.11.2019 made by the petitioner submitted under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2008 as expeditiously as possible.

It may be noted that as mandated by the state's anti-conversion law, a person wanting to convert his religion needs appropriate permission from District Magistrate to change his/her religion

To this, the Court issued direction stating,

"The respondent is directed to decide application of petitioner in accordance with law, as expeditiously as possible and preferably within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt of this order."

Case title - Jigneshkumar Manubhai Patel v. District Collector, Bharuch

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