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Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay on Thursday filed a plea before the Supreme Court seeking directions to declare forced and deceitful religious conversions as a serious threat to national integration.
The petition specifically flags the recent case at the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) unit in Nashik, Maharashtra, where multiple women employees have alleged that certain staff members systematically targeted them with religion-linked coercion, along with sexual harassment and workplace exploitation. "The Organised Religious Conversion in Nasik has shaken the conscience of citizens throughout the country. Therefore, the petitioner is filing this application seeking directions and declarations to control deceitful religious conversion, which is a serious threat to sovereignty, secularism, democracy, equality, justice, liberty, fraternity, unity and national integration," the plea states. Expanding on this, Upadhyay has argued that forced religious conversion, when carried out through systematic, organised and coercive means, falls within the ambit of a "terrorist act" under Section 113 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The plea submits that such acts meet the threefold test of mens rea, actus reus, and impact. It further asserts that organised conversion campaigns are allegedly aimed at altering demographic patterns, creating fear within targeted communities and undermining social cohesion and national integrity. "The requisites under Section 113 are satisfied when the method, be it causing death, injury, kidnapping, or overawing public functionaries, is employed with the intent to either strike terror among a section of people, making them feel existentially threatened, or to challenge the sovereignty and integrity of India by altering the character of its territory through fear and force. Moreover, these forced converted individuals are often recruited to spread more terrorism and propagate further forced conversion in the State", the plea reads. It further contends that these acts often involve intimidation, psychological pressure, violence, or inducement, thereby causing both individual harm and wider disruption of public order. The petitioner has also claimed that such organised activities may involve foreign funding and coordinated networks and therefore should be treated not merely as individual criminal offences but as threats to the sovereignty and security of the state. On this basis, the plea seeks directions to the Centre and States to take stringent steps to curb deceitful religious conversions, establish special courts for speedy trials and ensure stricter, consecutive sentencing in such cases, along with any other orders deemed appropriate by the Court. "Keeping in view the above stated facts, the court may be pleased to: a) direct and declare that Deceitful Religious Conversion is not only a serious threat to Sovereign, Secularism, Democrary and Liberty but also a menace to Fraternity, Dignity, Unity and National Integration; b) direct the Centre & States to take stringent steps to control Religious conversion, which is an organised crime, Act of Terrorism, Indirect waging war; Unlawful Act and a serious threat to National security; c) direct the Centre and States to establish Special Courts to deal with Religious Conversion Cases and declare that the Sentence for the Deceitful Religious conversion shall be consecutive, not concurrent; d) pass such other order as this Hon'ble court may deem fit and proper", the plea reads. (ANI)
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