Senior Advocate and former Orissa High Court Chief Justice S Muralidhar has expressed his strong views against the anti-conversion laws prevalent across the country, stating that they straightaway hit an individual’s freedom of choice and privacy, along with the choice of religion, dress, food, and prayer.
Speaking during the ADF India panel discussion on anti-conversion laws held recently, the former Orissa High Court Chief Justice said that such laws forced a person to make his private choice public.
The most pernicious aspect of these anti-conversion laws was that an individual had to defend himself publicly for a choice he made on a personal basis, noted the former Chief Justice.
Justice Muralidhar said that there was a presumption in all these laws that if a person belonging to or born into a certain religion decided to embrace another religion, then such a decision must be due to some kind of intimidation.
He said the laws were clearly meant to target any choice, not just a conversion. A person may voluntarily decide to convert on the grounds that he may find the values of a particular religion more appealing than the religion he was born into. This basic presumption explained why the law shifted the burden of proof onto the person charged with converting another against the person’s will, he added.
Therefore, the laws also targeted the Dalits, said Justice Muralidhar. He said the Dalits seeking to embrace Buddhism would have to explain to a District Magistrate why they were making that choice. First of all, they would have to announce to the whole world that they were exercising their choice to embrace a particular religion.
One could reasonably argue that after the Puttaswamy privacy judgement, this kind of law should not withstand legal scrutiny, he noted.
The Senior Advocate further explained another aspect of anti-conversion laws. Ideally, a person who has been a victim of a forced conversion should have the right to file a complaint. However, these laws permitted anyone, any cousin or relative, to file a complaint.
This gave the vigilante groups the freedom to go around looking at notice boards, Collector’s offices or Registrar offices to find who has put up a notice that they want to have an inter-faith marriage. In this case, they would also have ready information on who wanted to convert and thus subject the person to public intimidation, added Justice Muralidhar.
He further said that he wondered whether the society would change even if these laws were declared unconstitutional.
All the social practices currently being hosted by the country seem to be impervious to the values and provisions of the Constitution. The victory would come when the society changed and transform itself. It was important to overcome the innate inherent prejudices and emancipate as true human beings, he added.
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