The Nationwide Council of Church buildings of India has filed a writ petition within the Supreme Courtroom difficult the constitutional validity of the anti-conversion legal guidelines enacted by twelve states : Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, and Rajasthan.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi tagged the matter with different comparable petitiions associated to non secular conversion legal guidelines. The petitions can be heard by a three-judge bench.
The NCCI said that it’s made up of 32 Member Church buildings, 17 Regional Christian Councils, 18 All India Organisations and seven Associated Companies and that it represented about 14 million folks in India.
Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora, for the petitioner, submitted that it is just the current petition which challenges the legal guidelines of Odisha and Arunachal Pradesh. Not too long ago, in December 2025, the Courtroom had issued discover on a petition filed by the Catholic Bishops’ Convention of India difficult the Rajasthan Prohibition of Illegal Non secular Conversion Act, 2025.
Arora submitted that she has additionally filed an utility searching for keep of the legal guidelines, since abuse was rampant. “In lots of states, there is a matter of giant abuse, there have been purposes, and there may be an utility fora keep right here additionally,” she stated.
She said that there are specific “vigilante teams” who’re harassing minorities by elevating false instances, for the reason that legal guidelines have a “reward system.”
“The Acts that are in problem, they’re structured in such a way that it incentivises sure vigilante teams to take motion, as a result of there are rewards on the market. So even when there may be actually no case in any respect, somebody will make a case – someone can be arrested, and so on., as a result of there’s a reward for these on the vigilante aspect.”
Solicitor Basic of India Tushar Mehta opposed the petition.
The petitioner has challenged the legal guidelines on the grounds of being discriminatory, arbitrary and vaguely worded. The principle contentions as per the plea are
1. The Impugned Acts proceed on an unconstitutional presumption that non secular conversions involving adults are inherently coerced or fraudulent. On this flawed premise, they mandate prior intimation, inquiry, and permission from the District Justice of the Peace, thereby compelling people to justify deeply private choices to the State. Such provisions invert the citizen–State relationship, subordinate particular person conscience to bureaucratic oversight, and violate the rights to liberty, privateness, and freedom of faith.
2. The statutory definitions of “conversion”, “allurement”, “inducement” and “undue affect” are imprecise, overbroad, and devoid of goal requirements. This vagueness violates the doctrine of legality, grants uncanalised discretion to authorities, allows discriminatory enforcement, and produces a chilling impact on free speech and non secular propagation. Penal statutes, by settled constitutional precept, have to be exact, narrowly tailor-made, and able to predictable utility—necessities the Impugned Acts fail to fulfill.
3. Additional, the Impugned Acts develop the category of complainants to incorporate unrelated third events with out incorporating procedural safeguards. This has resulted within the routine invocation of legal legislation on the occasion of vigilante teams and personal actors, fairly than the purportedly aggrieved particular person. The absence of safeguards exposes harmless individuals to arrest, extended incarceration, denial of bail, monetary hardship, and social stigma, even within the absence of any prima facie proof of coercion or fraud.
4. The Impugned Acts additionally undermine core ideas of legal jurisprudence by imposing a reverse burden of proof on the accused, thereby eroding the presumption of innocence and procedural equity. Sure provisions, together with these singling out girls as inherently weak to illegal conversion, relaxation on gendered and paternalistic assumptions that deny girls equal decisional autonomy and violate Articles 14 and 21.
The petitioner has sought instructions to declare a number of such violative provisions throughout numerous state legal guidelines as invalid, it additionally seeks an interim keep on the impugned Acts in addition to instructions to the police authorities to not perform arrests, actions in pursuance of the provisions of the impugned act and issuance of keep on your complete legal proceedings akin to FIRs, registered underneath Part 3 and 5 of the impugned Acts and the ensuing investigations emanating.
The plea is filed with the assistance of AOR Niharika Ahluwalia and advocates Lija Merin John and Sanbha Rumnong.
Case Particulars : NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES IN INDIA Versus STATE OF RAJASTHAN AND ORS.| W.P.(C) No. 98/2026
