(UCAN): The Supreme Court in India restrained police from going forward with a criminal case against a Catholic priest for baptising a child from an inter-religious marriage under the sweeping anti-conversion law. The case in the western state of Gujarat dates back to 2012.
“The priest baptised the child as the mother was a practicing Catholic and the child followed the religion of the mother,” said Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash, who is closely following the matter.
The home state of prime minister, Narendra Modi, enacted the draconian anti-conversion law in 2003.
“It is a clear case of misuse of the anti-conversion law to falsely implicate the Catholic priest in a criminal offense,” Father Prakash, a rights activist based in Gujarat, said on August 28.
“The Supreme Court has done the right thing,” he asserted.
On August 25, the court stayed criminal proceedings against the priest, whose identity has not revealed to protect his life. It listed the matter for hearing after three weeks.
The priest had moved the top court against the recent order of the Gujarat High Court that dismissed his plea to quashing the case under provisions of the anti-conversion law.
The priest baptised the child as the mother was a practicing Catholic and the child followed the religion of the mother
Father Cedric Prakash, SJ
Both the mother and the father had given their consent for the baptism, the priest told the High Court. However, he was accused of baptising the child without prior permission from the government as the father of the child was a Hindu. The father filed a complaint in 2014 and the police in closed the investigation.
In 2020, however, police began another probe following a complaint from a social worker, accusing the priest of violating the stringent Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act which criminalises religious conversion through allurement, force and coercion.
The law is also called the “anti-love-jihad law” because it has provisions against alleged fraudulent religious conversions through marriage.
Eleven of India’s 28 provincial states have enacted anti-conversion laws criminalising inter-religious marriages, especially between Hindu girls and Christian or Muslim boys.
Church leaders say the law is often used to target Christians.
“The anti-conversion law itself is against the basic principles and spirit of the constitution, especially against fundamental rights,” Father Prakash said.
The priest is part of a rights group that has challenged the various anti-conversion laws enacted by the states in the Supreme Court.
