Hindu organization Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti on Thursday (November 7, 2025) moved the Supreme Court requesting it to intervene in the petitions filed against the laws made in several states to ban illegal and forced conversions.
In the petition filed through advocate Atulesh Kumar, the petitions filed against the laws made in many states including Uttarakhand Religious Freedom Act 2018, Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act 2021, Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 2019 and Madhya Pradesh Religious Freedom Act 2021 have been challenged.
In September, the Supreme Court had transferred to itself petitions pending in various high courts challenging the controversial laws regulating religious conversions on inter-religious marriages, which also include stringent provisions for bail and long sentences.
In the petition of Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti, a request has been made to include the petitioner as a party in the case and to give instructions to allow him to present his views in writing in the court. The organization has argued that freedom to propagate any religion does not give any person the right to convert and the law does not prohibit voluntary religious conversion on an independent basis.
The petition states that these laws only regulate those conversion acts which are carried out by force, fraud, inducement, undue influence or sham marriages. The petition states that these Acts do not impose any prior restrictions on bona fide conversion.
In 2023, the Supreme Court had asked the parties challenging the anti-conversion laws of the states to file a joint petition to transfer the cases from the High Courts to the apex court. The court had mentioned that there are at least five such petitions in Allahabad High Court, seven in Madhya Pradesh High Court, two each in Gujarat and Jharkhand High Court, three in Himachal Pradesh High Court and one each in Karnataka and Uttarakhand High Court.
Two separate petitions were also filed by the states of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, challenging interim orders of the respective High Courts staying certain provisions of their laws on conversion.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind had also moved the Supreme Court against the anti-conversion laws of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, arguing that they were designed to harass inter-religious couples and implicate them in criminal cases.