Supreme Court agrees to hear PIL against amended U.P. law on religious conversion

Supreme Court to consider plea challenging UP law on religious conversion, citing ambiguity, arbitrary enforcement, and lack of safeguards.

The Supreme Court on Friday (May 2, 2025) agreed to consider a plea challenging the constitutional validity of the 2024 amended Uttar Pradesh law on “unlawful religious conversion”.

A Bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K.V. Viswanathan took note of the submissions of senior lawyer S Muralidhar who said certain provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, as amended in 2024, were “vague and overly broad” and the ambiguity infringed upon free speech and religious propagation.

Editorial | ​Medieval-minded: On anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh, its amendments

The CJI, however, did not issue a notice on the plea for time being and said it will be heard along with other pending petitions on May 13.

The top court was hearing a PIL filed by Roop Rekha Verma, who hails from Lucknow, and others against the amended law.

The plea, filed through advocate Purnima Krishna, alleged the law infringed upon Articles 14 (equality before the law), 19 (freedom of speech and expression), 21 (right to life and personal liberty), and 25 (freedom of religion) of the Constitution.

Sections 2 and 3 of the Act, it claimed, were “vague, overly broad, and lack clear standards” which made it difficult to determine what constituted an offense.