Over six days to 16 January 2024, the Allahabad High Court rejected petitions from nine interfaith couples because they did not solemise their marriages according to the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act 2021, popularly known as the anti-conversion law.

The majority of these petitioners sought protection from any kind of threat from the “respondents”—their parents—but the court preferred procedure over their personal liberty and refused protection until they complied with the law, which is under challenge in the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional.

“In such view of the fact, the relief prayed for by the petitioners cannot be granted. Consequently, the writ petition is dismissed,” the court said in all the orders. “However, it is open to the petitioners to prefer a fresh writ petition in case they solemnise marriage after following the due procedure of law.”

Justice Saral Srivastava held that the marriages were “not in accordance” with UP’s anti-conversion law, popularly called the love-jihad law after a popular Hindu right-wing conspiracy theory.

Five of the nine couples involved Hindu women who converted to Islam, two Muslim women who converted to Hinduism, one in which both converted to Buddhism, and one retained their faiths, Scroll reported on 3 February 2024.

Among the formalities of the anti-conversion law that the couples had not fulfilled: having their conversions certified by a district magistrate under the anti-conversion laws, a process that involves 60-days advance notice to the local district magistrate, who invites “objections” for three weeks; and public disclosure of personal details.

Scroll reported that most of the petitioners had tried to follow the procedures set out by the law some months ago, but no conversion had been cleared by officials.

The high court, said former judges and lawyers I spoke to, could and should have granted interim or temporary protection to the couples until they complied with the law’s formalities. The anti-conversion law says nothing about protecting couples or individuals converting of their free will.

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