Former Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur has criticised the Uttar Pradesh government’s ordinance criminalising religious conversion via m...
Former Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur has criticised the Uttar Pradesh government’s ordinance criminalising religious conversion via marriage, saying it puts freedom of choice and dignity “on the backseat”, Live Law reported on Monday.
The ordinance was promulgated by Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel on November 28, days after it was passed by the Adityanath-led state Cabinet. Hours later, the police registered their first case against a Muslim man in the state’s Bareilly district.
Lokur, while delivering a public lecture on Sunday, said that laws against interfaith marriages violated jurisprudence developed by the Supreme Court. “States of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, Assam are planning to come up with similar ordinances,” he said. “The purpose of this law is to prohibit what is popularly known as love jihad.”
“Love jihad” is a conspiracy theory used by right-wing groups who accuse Muslim men of using marriage as a lure to force Hindu women to convert to Islam. The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, makes religious conversion a non-bailable offence, inviting penalties of up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.
“Although ‘love jihad’ has no definition, one chief minister has defined it as ‘jihadis playing with the honour and dignity of our sisters and daughter by hiding their real names and identities’,” Lokur...
