Overview
- A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notices and tagged the new petition with previously filed challenges to similar statutes.
- The National Council of Churches in India filed the plea against laws in twelve states, including Rajasthan, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, saying they criminalise voluntary adult conversions.
- Petitioners seek an interim stay on the laws, directions against arrests and a halt to ongoing criminal proceedings under the impugned provisions.
- The challenge cites prior-intimation and permission requirements, vague definitions such as allurement and inducement, expanded third-party complaints and reverse burdens as violations of rights to equality, liberty, privacy and religion.
- Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposed the plea, said the Centre’s reply is ready and invoked the Supreme Court’s 1977 Rev. Stanislaus precedent upholding earlier state laws.