SC grants interim protection to varsity officials booked by UP Police in a religious conversion case

New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted interim protection against arrest to the Vice-Chancellor and other higher officials of the Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture Technology and Science (SHUATS), who were booked by Uttar Pradesh Police for allegedly persuading a woman to adopt Christianity by offering her a job and other allurements.

“There shall also be an interim order protecting the petitioners from arrest in connection with FIR No. 305/2023 dated November 4, 2023 registered with Bewar Police Station, District Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh,” ordered a vacation bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and KV Vishwanathan.

Further, the bench stayed operation of the impugned judgment passed by the Allahabad High Court which had ordered the accused to surrender before the court on or before December 20, 2023 and apply for regular bail.

It said: “Issue notice. There shall be a stay of operation of the impugned judgment…..passed by the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad till January 12, 2024 or until further order, whichever is earlier.”

The matter has been ordered to be listed before the appropriate bench on January 3.

In an order passed on December 11, a division bench of Justice Rahul Chaturvedi and Justice Mohd Azhar Husain Idrisi of the High Court had refused to quash FIR lodged against varsity officials under section 376D (gang rape) and other IPC sections, and relevant sections of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 and Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956.

It said: “No God or true church or temple or mosque would approve such types of malpractices. If someone has chosen to get himself converted to a different religion, then it is totally another aspect of the issue. In the instant case prevailing upon the tender mind of a young girl providing gifts, clothing and other physical amenities and then asking her to get her baptised is an unpardonable sin.”

The High Court had said the allegations levelled in the FIR were extremely serious and horrifying, and asked the superintendent of police (SP) of Hamirpur to personally supervise the investigation and submit a report before the concerned magistrate within 90 days.

In her complaint, the woman alleged that she belonged to a lower middle-class family and was trapped by another woman who took her regularly to a church and she was regularly subjected to sexual exploitation by the accused, including the VC of SHUATS, formerly known as Allahabad Agricultural Institute.

In the FIR, she said that she was pressurised to bring other women for conversion and other illegal works.

Meanwhile, the accused had pleaded that the victim was offered a job at SHUATS and when she was sacked from her service in 2022, she tailored a story as mentioned in the FIR, just to rope in all the higher officials of SHUATS, including the vice-chancellor.