Allahabad high court 'salamat Ansari' case

Question 1

Why salamat ansari approached HC?

Answer 1

To quash a First Information Report (FIR) which alleged him of crime under Section 366 of IPC which criminalises abductionof a woman with an intent to compel her to marry against her will.Couple claims that it is an informed decision & they are living happily.

Question 2

What is U.P. state claiming?

Answer 2

-argued that Mr. Ansari and Ms.
Kharwar’s partnership had no
sanctity in the law, because a conversion with a singular aim of getting married was illegitimate.

• government relied on judgment in Noor Jahan
  v. State of U.P. (2014).

-High Court had held that a conversion by an individual to Islam was
valid only when it was predicated
on a “change of heart” and on an
“honest conviction” in the tenets
of the newly adopted religion
(https://bit.ly/33BO5QM). Additionally, the High Court had ruled
that the burden to prove the validity of a conversion was on the party professing the act.

-Therefore, in Salamat Ansari, it
was argued that it was for the woman to establish that her conversion was borne out of her conscience and out of a deep-seated
belief in the teachings of her new
religion

Question 3

What was held by division bench now?

Answer 3

It held that the
judgment in Noor Jahan was incorrectly delivered. Marriage, the
High Court said, is a matter of
choice, and every adult woman
has a fundamental right to choose
her own partner. Even if such a decision encourages other concomitant decisions, including a choice
of religion, the state can have little
to do with it. According to the High
Court, the Constitution is violated
every time matters of intimate and
personal choice are made vulnerable to the paternal whims of the
state.

Question 4

What is Article 25?

Answer 4

expressly protects the
choices that individuals make. In
addition to the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion, it guarantees to every person
the freedom of conscience.

Question 5

What is a 1977 Supreme Court judgment in Rev. Stainislaus v. State of
Madhya Pradesh.?

Answer 5

the Court upheld, on grounds of public order, two of the earliest anti-conversion statutes in India: the Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam, 1968,
and the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967. These laws required that a District Magistrate be informed each time a conversion was made and prohibited any conversion that was obtained through
fraud or illegal inducement.