The main legal point established in the judgment is the need for genuine and ethical conversion of religion, and the prohibition of conversion solely for the purpose of marriage.

JUDGMENT :

This C482 application has been preferred by the three applicants for their alleged involvement in the commission of the offences under sections 354, 504, 506, 420, 509 and 34 of IPC, which has been registered against them by way of a Case Crime No.572 of 2017, at Police Station Jwalapur, District Haridwar.

2. As a consequence of the investigation being carried and concluded, the Chargesheet no.379A dated 08.02.2018, was submitted by the Investigating Officer. Based on which, the cognizance has been taken by the court of CJM, Haridwar, as back as on 10.08.2018.

3. Today, the matter is being sought to be compounded by the parties on the ground, that the parties have entered into an amicable settlement, and particularly, when this Court had interacted with the complainant, the Court had specifically posed a question to her, that as to under which authority or a document, she got her religion converted from “Hindu to Muslim”. She contends, that there is no such document, which is available with her. Rather she further submits, that owing to the dispute, which had later arisen with the applicants, she has later on converted herself from “Muslim to Hindu”, and has later on also got married with a Hindu male.

4. The process of conversion from one religion to another religion cannot be on a hearsay or on a whimsical basis but it has to be based on an ethical choice, and not by virtue of the oral statement, and hence, the process of the conversion of religion cannot be orally accepted in evidence in the judicial proceedings, until and unless, the factum of the conversion is brought on record and is legally established to be by way of credible evidence. In the absence of there being any evidence on record, and coupled with the fact that the offence is said to have been commenced as back as on 07.10.2017, and the cognizance have been taken by the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate on 11.01.2018, this Court doesn’t visualize, as to what was the logical justification on the part of the present applicant to sit over the proceedings, without challenging the same at an appropriate time. Filing of the C482 Application at a belated stage, after a lapse of more than five years without explaining delay, which itself smacks malice on the part of the present applicants.

5. Apart from the valuable contribution which has been made by the learned counsel for the applicant on the issue about the prospective of the “conversion of the religion”, for the purposes of solemnization of the marriage, it would not be out of context to refer to the basic provisions of the Constitution, which provides for a citizen; as contained under Article 5 of the Constitution of India, as to how they could manage and exercise the liberty granted to them under Part III of the Constitution of India, particularly that as contained under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India. There cannot be any doubt when the basic intention of the secularism of the country, as envisaged by the Preamble of the Constitution, it has had to be logically justified in its applicability to achieve the basic democratic goal of the country, and not to be utilized as a weapon to increase the social unrest and the social activitism too, for the purposes of meeting the limited individual interest of expressing an affinity with the person of an opposite sex and that too exclusively for the purposes of conversion of religion, with that limited prospective to marry other sex of one’s choice. The secularism or freedom of the religion, and particularly, in the context of the liberty reserved by the Preamble with regards to the theory of expression of belief and faith, that has to be prudently construed, so that the unification of the country from its religious prospective is maintained, and it may not be permitted to sow the seeds of animosity amongst the persons belonging to the different caste and religion, merely because of an act of conversion of religion only for the purposes of marriage