On 28th February this year, former judge S Muralidhar courted controversy by claiming that laws against deceitful and forced conversions are ‘anti-choice.’ He made the remarks during a panel discussion on anti-conversion laws in the country.
S Muralidhar, who retired as the Chief Justice of the High Court of Orissa, said, “These anti-conversion laws are not so much a law against forced conversions, but are laws against the freedom of choice.”
“There is a presumption in all these laws that if a person belonging or born into a certain religion decides to embrace another religion, then such a decision must be due to some kind of intimidation,” he further claimed.
S Muralidhar continued, “This basic presumption explains why the law shifts the burden of proof onto the person who’s charged with converting another against the person’s will.”
He alleged that anti-conversion laws are targeted against Dalits and minorities.
The retired judge claimed, “Now, a Dalit seeking to embrace Buddhism will now have to explain to a district magistrate why they are making that choice. They’ll have to first of all announce to the whole world…One can reasonably argue that after the Puttaswamy privacy judgement, this kind of a law should not withstand legal scrutiny because it straight away hits at the freedom of choice, freedom of privacy, choice of religion, of course but what goes along with religion.”
S Muralidhar also objected to the fact that people other than the victim of forced conversion can also file complaints. He alleged that this provision in anti-conversion laws is giving way to vigilante groups.
“Who can complain about forced conversion is only a person who’s been a victim of a forced conversion. But the law allows anyone…any cousin, any relative…and thus vigilante groups are actually going around looking at notice boards and collector’s offices or registrar offices to find who’s put up a notice that they want to have an inter-faith marriage and in this case they’ll also have ready information on who wants to convert and thus subject the person to public intimidation,” the ex-judge claimed.
The development comes amid the raging controversy over the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act (APFRA), a legislation which is meant to protect indigenous communities in the Northeastern state but is vehemently opposed by Christian evangelist groups.
When Justice S Muralidhar released Gautam Navlakha from house arrest
In August 2018, the Pune Police arrested Gautam Navlakha and 4 other urban naxals in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence.
The cops pointed out that Navlakha and his comrades wanted to whip up sentiments under the garb of an ‘anti-caste event’ and assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a larger conspiracy. The urban naxals were then put under house arrest.
In November 2018, a Delhi High Court Bench comprising of Justice S Muralidhar set aside the order of a local court that granted transit remand to the Maharashtra police to shift Gautam Navlakha to Pune.
He stated that the transit remand did not comply with CrPC rules. Justice S Muralidhar ruled that the arrest of Gautam Navlakha was untenable by law and thus released him from house arrest.
The accused urban naxal Gautam Navlakha had reportedly visited the United States thrice in the period between 2010-2011 and written to a US district court judge seeking clemency for Fai, who was arrested by the FBI in 2011 on the charges of accepting funds to the tune of several million from the ISI and the Pakistan government.
In another case, on 31st December 2023, the Delhi Police interrogated Navlakha in Mumbai in connection with the NewsClick funding case. He was questioned about his association with NewsClick’s founder and Editor-in-Chief Prabir Purkayastha, as well as his shareholding in the company, PPK NewsClick Studio Pvt Ltd.
