Tanvi Sinha
The Supreme Court gave the petitioners liberty to withdraw the pleas they filed to the Supreme Court and asked them to file it to Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh High Courts as they were already entertaining similar petitions.
The incident comes after Vishal Thakre and NGO PUCL, the petitioners, submitted a plea to the apex court contending the so-called “Love Jihad laws”.
The petitioners asked the ordinances, the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018 to be declared ultra vires.
The pleas were submitted on grounds that these ordinances went against the Special Marriage Act, 1954 and that it creates fear in society for inter-faith couples who despite not being the target of the ordinances, could get falsely implicated.
They submit this with proof of how the laws have already been used for such a purpose, with various interfaith couples being falsely targeted by the laws.
The apex court, however, stated that while their stance and their arguments weren’t bad, they needed to go to the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand High Courts for this, owing to similar petitions already existing in these courts.