LUCKNOW: The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has said that “courts should ensure that religious conversion has not been done forcibly or frequently or under allurement as conversion from one religion to another is a tricky issue.”
The Bench of Justice DP Singh and Justice Rajiv Sharma was hearing the plea by a woman, Sonal Jain, who said that a family court in Bahraich had directed her last month to stay with a man, a Muslim, though she had neither married him and nor did she convert to Islam to do so.
She said that the Bahraich court gave the direction on November 12, without issuing her any notice or hearing her plea.
The bench set aside the family court’s order and directed it to hear Jain’s plea before deciding on the application of one Khan Farogh Azam, seeking restoration of conjugal rights.
“In case there is doubt over mode and manner of conversion, ordinary injunction should be refused. Heavy burden lies on the person who alleges that conversion took place. It shall further be necessary to prove that conversion is voluntary, without any coercion and misunderstanding”, the Bench added.
Challenging the Bahraich family court order, Sonal Jain said that she practised Jainism and did not converted to Islam. She charged Azam for falsely claiming that she converted to Islam on January 22 this year and then married her on January 24.
Sonal pleaded that Azam moved a habeas corpus petition in the HC and also filed an application before the family court in Bahraich on the basis of incorrect facts that she married him after allegedly converting to Islam. The family court, without issuing her any notice, has passed an interim order in favour of Azam, directing her to restore marital relations, though she never married him, pleaded Sonal.
Azam, however, told the Bench that Sonal had converted to Islam and changed her name to be Kasifa Farog and later married him.
But, Azam could not produce any documentary evidence that she had converted to Islam.
TOI | Dec 18, 2014
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