Umamageswari Maruthappan
The Uttar Pradesh Government has requested the Supreme Court to take over all the petitions, pending before the High Court, relating to the Ordinance against Unlawful Conversion for settlement purposes.
Manish Goyal, Additional Advocate General, appearing for the State, informed about the same to the Allahabad High Court.
“The Supreme Court has been apprised of the matter. The government has requested the Supreme Court to transfer the petitions under Article 139A of the Constitution,” Mr. Goyal said.
The Allahabad HC was hearing a petition against the recent ordinance. After considering the statement, the Bench comprising Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery decided to list all the petitions in this relation for final hearing on 25th January 2021.
Additionally, the High Court also acknowledged an application made by the Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives through its managing trustee Tulika Srivastava and “allowed it to participate in the writ proceedings as an intervener.”
The Uttar Pradesh Government decided to move the Apex Court in this regard because a similar case is already pending before it. Earlier, on 6th January 2021, the Top Court had issued a notice to the Governments of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand seeking their response with regards to the petitions filed against the disputed ordinance.
The UP Government considered it inappropriate for the High Court to deal with the matter when the Supreme Court had already taken cognizance of this case. Thus, it filed an application before the Top Court to transfer all the cases of similar nature from the High Court to itself.
The application was made under Article 139A of the Indian Constitution which gives the Supreme Court power to transfer all cases pending before one or more High Courts to itself and dispose of the same provided that cases involving same or substantially same question of law are also pending before it.
In November 2020, the Uttar Pradesh Government had promulgated the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020. Ever since the ordinance was passed, there has been reported cases of bookings, arrests and FIRs being registered for unlawful conversion.
However, several PILs and writ petitions have been filed before the Allahabad High Court challenging the validity of the new ordinance.
Saurabh Kumar, one among the petitioners, requested the High Court to declare the ordinance as “ultra vires” stating that the impugned ordinance infringes the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
However, the State Counsel denied all the allegations. The issue reached the Apex Court and the Bench comprising CJI S A Bobde decided to hear on the matter after four weeks from 6th January 2021 which will be around the first week of February 2021.