National Council Of Churches In India Approaches Supreme Court Challenging Anti-Conversion Laws Of 12 States

The National Council of Churches of India has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the anti-conversion laws enacted by twelve states : Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, and Rajasthan.A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi tagged the matter with other similar petitiions related to religious conversion laws. The petitions will be heard by a three-judge bench.The NCCI stated that it is made up of 32 Member Churches, 17 Regional Christian Councils, 18 All India Organisations and 7 Related Agencies and that it represented about 14 million people in India.Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora, for the petitioner, submitted that it is only the present petition which challenges the laws of Odisha and Arunachal Pradesh. Recently, in December 2025, the Court had issued notice on a petition filed by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India challenging the Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act, 2025.Arora submitted that she has also filed an application seeking stay of the laws, since abuse was rampant. "In many states, there is an issue of huge abuse, there have been applications, and there is an application fora stay here also," she said.She stated that there are certain "vigilante groups" who are harassing minorities by raising false cases, since the laws have a "reward system.""The Acts which are in challenge, they are structured in such a manner that it incentivises certain vigilante groups to take action, because there are rewards out there. So even if there is really no case at all, someone will make a case - somebody will be arrested, etc., because there is a reward for those on the vigilante side."Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta opposed the petition.The petitioner has challenged the laws on the grounds of being discriminatory, arbitrary and vaguely worded. The main contentions as per the plea are 1. The Impugned Acts proceed on an unconstitutional presumption that religious conversions involving adults are inherently coerced or fraudulent. On this flawed premise, they mandate prior intimation, inquiry, and permission from the District Magistrate, thereby compelling individuals to justify deeply personal decisions to the State. Such provisions invert the citizen–State relationship, subordinate individual conscience to bureaucratic oversight, and violate the rights to liberty, privacy, and freedom of religion. 2. The statutory definitions of "conversion", "allurement", "inducement" and "undue influence" are vague, overbroad, and devoid of objective standards. This vagueness violates the doctrine of legality, grants uncanalised discretion to authorities, enables discriminatory enforcement, and produces a chilling effect on free speech and religious propagation. Penal statutes, by settled constitutional principle, must be precise, narrowly tailored, and capable of predictable application—requirements the Impugned Acts fail to satisfy. 3. Further, the Impugned Acts expand the class of complainants to include unrelated third parties without incorporating procedural safeguards. This has resulted in the routine invocation of criminal law at the instance of vigilante groups and private actors, rather than the purportedly aggrieved individual. The absence of safeguards exposes innocent persons to arrest, prolonged incarceration, denial of bail, financial hardship, and social stigma, even in the absence of any prima facie evidence of coercion or fraud. 4. The Impugned Acts also undermine core principles of criminal jurisprudence by imposing a reverse burden of proof on the accused, thereby eroding the presumption of innocence and procedural fairness. Certain provisions, including those singling out women as inherently vulnerable to unlawful conversion, rest on gendered and paternalistic assumptions that deny women equal decisional autonomy and violate Articles 14 and 21.The petitioner has sought directions to declare several such violative provisions across various state laws as invalid, it also seeks an interim stay on the impugned Acts as well as directions to the police authorities not to carry out arrests, actions in pursuance of the provisions of the impugned act and issuance of stay on the entire criminal proceedings corresponding to FIRs, registered under Section 3 and 5 of the impugned Acts and the consequent investigations emanating. The plea is filed with the help of AOR Niharika Ahluwalia and advocates Lija Merin John and Sanbha Rumnong. Case Details : NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES IN INDIA Versus STATE OF RAJASTHAN AND ORS.| W.P.(C) No. 98/2026Click Here To Read/Download Order

National Council Of Churches In India Approaches Supreme Court Challenging Anti-Conversion Laws Of 12 States

Anmol Kaur Bawa

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