Put conversion matter before 5-judge bench: fresh application in SC

NEW DELHI, JAN 29

(PTI): A fresh application has been moved before the Supreme Court urging that the matters related to alleged forcible religious conversions be taken up by a larger bench of five judges as they involve the interpretation of the Constitution.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud is scheduled to hear the batch of pleas on Monday against anticonversion laws of several states regulating religious conversion due to interfaith marriages and on matters related to alleged forcible conversions. The fresh application is filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, who is among the petitioners. He has asked the court to refer the petitions to a larger bench saying there are several questions of laws involved which require the interpretation of the Constitution. He raised questions like whether the previous judgments of this Court interpreting Article 25(1) of the Constitution are grossly erroneous in so far as they upheld the word “propagate” would include entitlement to convert.

“Whether the word “propagate” needs to be construed in a manner which is not detrimental to fraternity, unity, dignity and national integration...,” Upadhyay’s fresh plea said.

It should also not lead to communal conflagration on account of religious communities trying to convert the weaker section of other religious communities and “attempting to make demographic changes as witnessed in the nine states/ UTs (Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Kashmir, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh) and around 200 districts of India”, the application said. In another application, Upadhyay has sought modification of the order dated

January 9 in which the apex court had directed that the matter be listed under the title of “In Re: The issue of Religious conversion” to the original title.

On January 16, the top court asked the parties challenging the anti-conversion laws of several states to file a common petition seeking the transfer of cases on the issue from various high courts to the apex court. It had asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for one of the parties, to file a common petition seeking the transfer of all the pleas from high courts to the top court. The top court had taken note of the submission of senior advocate Dushyant Dave that one of the petitions, filed by Upadhyay, casts aspersions on Christians and Muslims and asked senior lawyer Arvind Datar, appearing for Upadhyay, to file a formal plea for deletion of the “objectionable portions”. manufacturers for HPV vaccines. Globally, three foreign firms manufacture HPV vaccines out of which two sell their doses in India.

Datar, however, said he was not pressing the alleged contents.

The plea by Upadhyay against alleged “forceful religious conversions” was earlier being heard by another bench led by Justice MR Shah before it was transferred to the bench headed by the CJI recently.

Each dose of the vaccine available in the market costs more than Rs 4,000, sources said.

In September 2022, Poonawalla had said that each dose of its “CERVAVAC” vaccine would cost Rs 200 to Rs 400.

India, which is home to about 16 per cent of the world’s women, accounts for about a quarter of all cervical cancer incidences and nearly a third of global cervical cancer deaths.

Indian women face a 1.6 per cent lifetime cumulative risk of developing cervical cancer and a one per cent cumulative death risk from cervical cancer, according to officials.

Recent estimates state that every year almost 80,000 women develop cervical cancer and 35,000 die in India due to it.

On what prevented India from introducing the HPV vaccine till now, NTAGI chief Dr N K Arora had said that the vaccine supply has been a limiting factor globally.

Fortunately, over the last five years, the global supply of the HPV vaccine has been improving gradually.

India has taken a lead in this direction. Serum Institute of India, one of the major Indian vaccine manufacturers, with support from the Centre’s Department of Biotechnology has developed four valent HPV vaccine.

Clean election goal

It is doubtful if current electioneering in Nagaland will ever experience the much needed change where true elections would triumph over farcical elections that have been the hallmark of parliamentary democracy in the state. Clean election as it were, has been a subject of intense discussion in Nagaland particularly after the influential Nagaland Baptist Church Council(NBCC), after years of mulling over, finally decided to brave the challenge in 2012 to launch its ‘clean election campaign’. NBCC wanted to replicate the Mizoram experiment floated by the church where the influential Mizo People’s Front (MPF) to effect clean election. True that elections in Nagaland among the most expensive in India that places a huge financial burden on candidates and also true also that election means indulging in electoral malpractices. Unethical and corrupt practices such as bogus voters list, proxy voting, booth capturing, intimidation of voters through display of deadly arsenal, use of armed miscreants to abduct agents and workers, bribes etc have plagued elections since the mid-70s are evident across the nation. Every citizen in a free democracy is obligated to vote without fear or favour. The effort did not succeed as the ‘Clean Election Campaign’ launched by the church, could not get their act together mainly due to lack of proper planning and time. To understand why Nagaland needs clean election; it would be appropriate to look into the entire issue of how elections in the state have become one among the most expensive in the country ; where booth capturing and proxy voting etc have become so rampant and so widely practised that these evils have unfortunately become necessary evils to win elections. Though money may not be used as blatantly in some places; but the very fact that some traditional or village authorities or organizations issue undemocratic diktats have hijacked the democratic process, does not make matters any better. The escalating costs of elections has brought worse than ruination of candidates; many of them, even the may have won an election, are still trying to repay back money borrowed. While the Nagaland Baptist Church Council(NBCC) is still trying to educate people on the need for clean elections, there are other issues that have a direct and crucial bearing on elections and the way they are conducted, held and their impact on society and the government. Democracy is the tool and power of the people to decide on their destiny and therefore voting is sacred and the very core of the fundamental right. Elections are conducted with blatant violation of the electoral code of conduct for an exercise that is one of the most expensive and unfair for various reasons. The other anti-democratic and criminal act is the practice of bogus voters and proxy voting. The little way out as a preventive means is to make it mandatory for voters to produce Electoral Photo Identity Card(EPIC) without which, no one can enter the polling station. If there is genuine desire to have clean election, the process should begin much ahead of scheduled election. The MPF clean election serves as a model but efforts should also include having it as subject taught in schools. It is more than enough time that NGOs in the state including church make a concerted effort to monitor electioneering in partnership with the Election Commission of India(ECI).

DailyDevotion

How Could Someone Be So Ignorant!

Who are You, Lord? —Acts 26:15

“The Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand…” (Isaiah 8:11). There is no escape when our Lord speaks. He always comes using His authority and taking hold of our understanding. Has the voice of God come to you directly?

If it has, you cannot mistake the intimate insistence with which it has spoken to you. God speaks in the language you know best— not through your ears, but through your circumstances.

God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. We say, “I know that this is what I should do” — and suddenly the voice of God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our ignorance. We show our ignorance of Him in the very way we decide to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, and hurt Him by our defense of Him. We push His claims in the spirit of the devil; our words sound all right, but the spirit is that of an enemy. “He…rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of’ ” (Luke 9:55). The spirit of our Lord in His followers is described in 1 Corinthians 13.

Have I been persecuting Jesus by an eager determination to serve Him in my own way? If I feel I have done my duty, yet have hurt Him in the process, I can be sure that this was not my duty. My way will not be to foster a meek and quiet spirit, only the spirit of self-satisfaction. We presume that whatever is unpleasant is our duty! Is that anything like the spirit of our Lord— “I delight to do Your will, O my God…” (Psalm 40:8).

Quotes

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.

~ Anne Frank