“What is the harm in issuing a direction to the State government to frame guidelines against religious conversion in schools,” Justice R. Mahadevan of the Madras High Court asked on Thursday, while hearing a public interest litigation petition seeking such a direction.
Leading the vacation Bench, along with Justice S. Ananthi, the judge said the Constitution provides a right to profess any religion but not to forcibly convert a person from one religion to another. He wondered why the court should not issue a direction, as sought by the litigant.
However, when Additional Advocate General (AAG) J. Ravindran questioned the maintainability of the PIL petition, filed by Chennai-based advocate B. Jagannath, and insisted on throwing it away at the threshold, the judges agreed to hear the case at length on Friday.
The AAG said the petitioner had cited only two instances of alleged conversion in schools in the State. The first case, related to the death of a student named Lavanya, of Thanjavur Christian Missionary School, had been transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
In the second instance, the teacher concerned had been suspended from service. “Apart from these two instances, no other allegation of religious conversion had been reported, and none of the aggrieved parties had approached the court. The present case is not a bona fide litigation,” the AAG argued.
However, stating that the petitioner before the court had filed an exhaustive affidavit running to 46 pages, and had cited instances of religious conversions happening since colonial rule, the judges decided to hear the matter in detail on Friday and permitted the AAG to raise the question of maintainability, too.
In his affidavit, the petitioner had accused the State government of supporting religious conversions and alleged that they were happening in government as well as government-aided private schools. He pointed out that a DMK MLA had draped a shawl around the prime accused in Lavanya’s death case and welcomed her when she came out on bail.
“It highlights the priorities of the State government and its open sponsoring and backing of these Christian missionaries,” the affidavit read.
