Religious Conversion: SP MLA Moves Bombay HC Challenging The State Govt Resolution

A writ petition has been filed in the Bombay High Court by Samajwadi Party MLA Rais Shaikh challenging the government’s decision to establish an inter-faith marriage-family coordination committee in Maharashtra.

According to the petition, the resolution is discriminatory against a particular religion and thus violates, among other things, Articles 14 (right to equality), 15 (forbidding discrimination), 21 (right to life, which includes the right to privacy), and 25 (right to freedom of religion) of the Indian Constitution.

The GR, according to Shaikh, is an attempt by the government “to discourage and/or prevent inter-faith marriages and is essentially a precursor to regulations pertaining to supposed love jihad marriages, which have been stayed in various States of India.”

Following the gruesome murder of Shraddha Walkar in Delhi, allegedly by her inter-faith live-in partner, the Maharashtra Government issued the GR (Government Resolution) on December 13, 2022, and the committee is allegedly meant to provide a platform to ‘counsel, communicate, and resolve’ issues between couples and families.

The committee can interfere at the behest of any person, which the plea argues is an invasion of the couple’s privacy “particularly when two consenting adults are married to one other”.

Importantly, the Petitioner claims that the discourse in India about marriage fails to centre on adult persons, and that familial and societal pressures have always played a part in choosing young people’s futures.

The petition, filed through counsel Jeet Gandhi, claims that the GR wants to promote a “regressive” and “false narrative” that a girl is exclusively at risk from her spouse in interfaith or intercaste marriages.

Furthermore, the GR discriminates against a specific religion and promotes division among individuals rather than harmony, coexistence, integration, and peace.

It is especially ultra vires to create a narrative that interfaith marriages are out of the usual and rare, necessitating ongoing examination, according to the petition. “No marriage between two consenting people demands ongoing examination and/or outside monitoring.”

The Government Resolution was adopted unilaterally and in haste under dubious circumstances, without following necessary procedure, and is consequently ultra vires the constitution, according to the petition.

As a result, the petition seeks to quash the Government Resolution (GR) and any actions done in response to it. In the meanwhile, the Government may be directed to halt activity in accordance with the GR.

The case will be heard before the High Court in due course.