President appealed to ensure rights of religious minorities are not eroded

By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net
 
Bhopal : Dr. John Dayal on behalf of the All India Catholic Union, All India Christian Council and the United Christian Action, has formally appealed to the new President of India Mrs. Pratibha Patil to ensure that the rights of religious minorities are not eroded by any legislative or executive measure by the Central and State government.
    
Dr. Dayal said President Pratibha Patil has, of course, to take a decision on 50 Mercy Petitions before her. Her Presidential powers, and legal expertise –I think she is the first President, after President Shankar Dayal Sharma, to have studied Law, and the first to have practiced as a Lawyer in her early professional years — will also be called upon to bear on matters concerning the Religious Minorities in India.
    
He said these are Bills conceived in political sin, mired in deep controversy, denounced by Human Rights activists and Civil Society in general, but relentlessly pursued by the Sangh Parivar and by those within the Indian National Congress Party and other political groups who seem to espouse the same ideology when they interact with Christians and Muslims.
    
Dr. Dayal expressed apprehension that from the Central government may eventually come a law defining the term religious minorities on the basis of the population of various groups in the States. There are many who favor this addition to laws, saying it will only bring on the Statute books what the Supreme Court has ruled in the past. The opposition to the idea is equally strong, he emphasized.
    
He said that Civil Society and religious groups point out such a law will make a mockery of Constitutional rights given to religious minorities who now are members of the nationally recognized Parsee, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim faiths. Christians may find themselves a majority in Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Kerala, perhaps even in Goa, and lose the protection of the law over their institutions. Their students will no longer be eligible for admission in premier national institutions such as St  John's Medical College, Loyola, St. Xavier's, Jesus & Mary and St. Stephen's.
    
The other major bundle of controversy pertains to the so-called Freedom of Religion Bills from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.     Dr. Dayal said in Madhya Pradesh, the Governor has sought the opinion of the Union Government's law officers. The Solicitor General of India in his letter to the Governor trashed the entire proposal as ultra vires of the Constitution in its detail and intent.
    
Goolam E Vahanvati, Solicitor General of India, in his reply to the Madhya Pradesh Governor said that the proposed amendment in Section 5(1) to 5(5) of the M.P. Dharm Swatantraya Adhiniyam 1968 are ultra-vires to Article 24(1), 26 and 2(3) of the Constitution of India for the various reasons mentioned above, pointing out lack of clarity and patent obscurity in Section 5(2) and 5(3) of the proposed amendment.
    
Vahanvati said:"In my opinion, it is highly unreasonable to expect a person, who is intending to convert his religion, the report of the Superintendent of Police is negative, to be required to challenge the report. The implication of such an approach is that until the report is set aside by a competent Court, the conversion cannot take place. That by itself amounts to unreasonable restriction under Article 25 of the Indian Constitution.
    
The Solicitor General is of the opinion  that there is clear ambiguity in the proposed sub section 5(3). "I have indicated the implications hereinabove. It is unreasonable to bring about a nebulous situation leading to deterring a person from going through and exercising his right to convert on the basis of a negative report based on extraneous factors such as "objections" to the conversion. The failure to provide clearly as to what is to happen in the case of an adverse report renders the proposed clause unreasonable. The wording of Sub-section 3 which refers to objections (and not to forcible conversion) is contrary to the spirit of the Act. It would be quite strange that if somebody objects to a conversion then that would be treated as the conversion being forcible", he opined.
    
The most piquant is the situation with the similar Bill in Rajasthan. Mrs. Patil, in her earlier incarnation as Governor of Rajasthan, had thrown back the Bill sent to her by the Rajasthan assembly. The Bill had been rushed through the Legislative Assembly without much of a debate. Civil society had risen against it in unison. It was my privilege, and that of many other activists, to send to Mrs. Patil a detailed critique of the Bill by the eminent Constitutional expert, Dr Rajeev Dhawan, who practices before the Supreme Court of India. Dr Dhawan's categorical view was that such a Bill would not stand constitutional scrutiny. She correctly refused to sing it. Inevitably, a decision will again have to be taken on the Bill sooner than later. ([email protected])