'Religious Gatherings Or Charity Not Offences Under UP Conversion Act' : Supreme Court Quashes Cases Against SHUATS University VC

The Supreme Court has quashed multiple FIRs registered in Uttar Pradesh against Dr. Rajendra Bihari Lal, Vice-Chancellor of Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS), and several other university officials, holding that the proceedings were based on “completely incredulous material” and amounted to an abuse of criminal process.

A Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra delivered the ruling in a batch of appeals arising from criminal proceedings lodged in various police stations of Uttar Pradesh under the U.P. Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, along with IPC offences.

In the judgment, the Court noted that one FIR was legally barred as it was not lodged by a victim. As per the UP Act, as it stood then, only victims(or their relatives) could have lodged an FIR.

Further, the other FIRs were found to be repetitions of the allegations. The witness statements were found to be mechanically reproduced ("cyclostyled"), with even mistakes in the names of the deponents getting repeated across statements. Also, the witness statements only showed instances of religious gatherings and Bible preaching, with no allegation of unlawful conversion. The Court said that neither the UP Act nor the IPC made religious gatherings or charity work an offence.

In this backdrop, the Court quashed the FIRs, observing "criminal law cannot be allowed to be made a tool of harassment of innocent persons, allowing prosecuting agencies to initiate prosecution at their whims and fancy, on the basis of completely incredulous material."

Background of FIRs

The first FIR, FIR 224/2022, was lodged at Kotwali Police Station in Fatehpur District, on 15.04.2022. alleging that a mass conversion of 90 persons took place on Maundy Thursday at the Evangelical Church of India. The complainant was one Himanshu Dixit, the Vice President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The Court noted that the complainant was a victim of alleged illegal conversion and was a third party.

The second FIR, FIR 47/2023, was lodged at Kotwali PS on 20.01.2023, by one Sarvendra Vikram Singh who alleged that he was allured into embracing Christianity by the accused persons with offers of cash, a job with a university and marriage with a beautiful girl.

The third FIR, FIR 54/2023, was lodged at the same police station on 23.01.2023 with respect to allegations of mass conversion on Maundy Thursday in 2022.

The fourth FIR, FIR 55/2023, was lodged at the same police station within 7 minutes of FIR 54/2023, with the same allegations.

The fifth FIR, FIR No. 60/2023, lodged for the very same offences and at the very same police station, reproducing allegations made in FIR Nos. 54/2023 and 55/2023

The sixth FIR, FIR No. 538/2023, lodged at the PS Nawabganj, District Prayagraj, on 11.12.2023, alleging that the accused persons threatened the complainant, fired a shot at him, demanded money from him and were performing illegal conversion acts by offering a cure to diseases.

Court's findings

The Supreme Court noted that FIR 224/22 was not sustainable as it was lodged at the instance of a third party and not the alleged victim. As per Section 4 of the UP Act, before its amendment in 2024, only a victim or their spouse or relatives could lodge the FIR.

The Court rejected the argument of Attorney General for India R Venkataramani that the general law under CrPC should prevail over the UP Act so as to allow FIRs by third parties. The Court held that the special law will prevail. The Court further observed that the bar against third party complaints was a legislative safeguard to weed out vexatious complaints by busybodies.

Materials woefully inadequate to substantiate the allegations

The Court also took note of the materials collected by the investigating agency and found them to be woefully inadequate. It noted that the witness statements were mechanically reproduced, and the errors in one statement were duplicated in others as well. Even errors in names of the witnesses were mechanically duplicated. For example, the statement of one Sanjay Singh said that his name in the Aadhaar card was changed from "Rajesh Kumar Dwivedi” to "Rajesh Kumar Samson”. Another witness named Pramod Kumar Dixit also stated that his name was forcefully changed from "Rajesh Kumar Dwivedi” to "Rajesh Kumar Samson”.

Also, the witnesses never underwent unlwaful conversion nor were present at the site of the alleged site of conversion.

The Court said that the evidence in the form of videos etc, showed only the instances of religious gatherings.

"We do not find from a reading of the U.P. Conversion Act that organization of religious gatherings or doing charity work in the name of religion has also been made a criminal offence. No provision in the IPC prohibits such activities too. No irregularity in the funding of the organization from international sources has been pointed out. More so, in case of any such irregularity, a number of provisions of the relevant legislations could have been invoked to deal with an erring organization. However, none of such provisions have been invoked in the present case. Receiving foreign aid and carrying out charitable work, even in the name of religion, ipso facto is not a punishable offence under any of the legislations," the Court noted.

Observing that "the materials collected during the course of investigation lack credibility and fall hopelessly short of the standard necessary for permitting criminal prosecution to proceed", the Court quashed the said FIR.

As regards FIR 47/2023, the Court noted that the evidence showed the accused person citing a Bible verse in a religious gathering, which reads thus –

“Psalm 2:8 - Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.”

"We are at a loss to understand as to how such religious gathering could be found to be in contravention to the provisions of the law, when no direct attempt to allure or induce with a view to cause conversion could be traced," the Court wondered.

It also noted that the witness statements were a "replica" of the statements in FIR 224/22. "It seems that the entire process of investigation was not an attempt to uncover the truth of the allegations, but rather to find ways to somehow substantiate the allegations levelled in the FIR," the Court said.

The Court noted that the subsequent FIRs appeared to have been registered to get over the legal infirmity in FIR 224/2022 (which was lodged by a third party).

The Court said that the grave inconsistencies in the FIRs - such as cyclostyled witness statements across different FIRs; prototype statement of different witnesses in the same FIR; false affidavits; etc. – compel it to quash the proceedings.

"Where the credentials of the investigation are already lacking in genuineness and credibility in relation to the other FIRs registered at the same police station for similar offences, we are of the view that it wouldn't be prudent to allow the continuation of criminal proceedings in relation to the present FIR as well," the Court stated.

FIRs 55/2023 and 60/2023 were quashed on the ground that they dealt with the same allegations as in FIR 224/2022. Applying the principle in the TT Antony case, the subsequent FIRs over the same allegations were quashed.

FIR 54/2023, lodged by an alleged victim of mass conversion, was also found to have glaring discrepancies. The delay in lodging this FIR (about nine months) led the Court to infer that it was lodged to get over the legal infirmity in FIR 224/2022. FIR 54/2023 also pertained to the Maundy Thursday event.

Also, while the complainant in FIR 54/2023 stated that he was a victim of unlawful conversion, in FIR 224/22, he had given a contradictory statement that he was not subjected to conversion but was a member of VHP who reached the venue upon getting information.

"The mere fact that the complainant in FIR No. 54/2023 had taken a complete U-turn from the statement he made during the course of investigation in FIR No. 224/2022, and more so that he, in his earlier statement, admitted having accompanied the informant in FIR No. 224/2022 makes it an easy guess as regards the circumstances in which multiple subsequent FIRs came to be registered pertaining to the same alleged incident dated 14.04.2022 at the instance of persons who, after a lapse of considerable time, started to masquerade as the victims of the alleged unlawful mass conversion," the Court observed.

Criminal Law cannot be used a tool of harassment

"The criminal law cannot be allowed to be made a tool of harassment of innocent persons, allowing prosecuting agencies to initiate prosecution at their whims and fancy, on the basis of completely incredulous material," the Court.

Having noticed the glaring infirmities in the registration of FIR No. 224/2022, it was not open to the police to overcome the difficulty by getting persons with vested interests to make complaints regarding the same alleged incident after a considerable delay and thereafter initiate a fresh round of investigation against largely the same set of accused persons. Unfortunately, this is the only impression which the material on record has left on us," the Court added, quashing FIR 54/2023.

Regarding FIR 538/2023, the Court noted that here as well,the allegations of illegal conversion cannot be acted upon, since they were not made by any victim. As regards other allegations pertaining to threat, extortion etc., the Court said that the matter required further consideration. So, the FIR was quashed to the extent of offences under the UP Conversion Act, and the matter was adjourned for further hearing to consider the other offences.

Senior Advocates Siddarth Dave, Siddharth Agarwal,Rebecca M John, Advocate Vairawan A.S, Pallavi Sharma appeared for the petitioners.

Attorney General for India R Venkataramani, and AAG Garima Prashad appeared for the State of UP.

Case Details: RAJENDRA BIHARI LAL AND ANR. v. STATE OF U.P. AND ORS.| W.P.(Crl.) No. 123/2023 and connected cases.