The hearing on the PIL filed against the Uttar Pradesh government’s conversion law to stop the increasing cases of love jihad could not be completed on Tuesday by the Allahabad High Court.
The Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice Piyush Agrawal passed this order while hearing a PIL filed by Saurabh Kumar.
This is the third plea on the issue, the others being [Aali (Association For Advocacy And Legal Initiatives) v. State of U.P.] and Shobhana Smriti v. State of UP. All the three pleas were supposed to be listed on Tuesday, however, only one plea was listed before the Court.
“The default in carrying out the direction above would result in action against the defaulting officer of Registry because despite specific order passed on September 13, 2021, Public Interest Litigation No. 811 of 2021 [Aali (Association For Advocacy And Legal Initiatives) Vs. State of U.P.] so as Public Interest Litigation No. 1061 of 2021 (Shobhana Smriti Vs. State of U.P.) are not listed today,” the court noted.
In the meanwhile, respondents are directed to provide a copy of the counter affidavit filed in the connected writ petitions to the counsel for the petitioner, the court-ordered. The Court has fixed the next hearing on October 22.
The petition said that there are several other provisions in the Act that could plausibly be identified as unconstitutional and that the Act requires every religious conversion to be scrutinized and certified by the state.
The PIL seeks directions to the respondents not to take any coercive action in pursuance of the impugned Act in cases of conversion by solemnization of marriage or relationship in the nature of marriage.