‘Approach UP court’: HC tells Delhi woman on FIR filed under UP conversion law

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said the Delhi high court didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the petition against the Muzaffarnagar court’s order

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court has declined to entertain a petition by a Delhi woman who challenged a first information report (FIR) registered on the orders of a Muzaffarnagar court that accused her of forcibly converting her estranged husband and her two daughters to Christianity under UP’s Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.

The woman contested the order to invoke the UP law against her, saying that for the duration of her marriage, she and her husband stayed in Delhi and not UP. (HT File)

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said the court did not have jurisdiction to hear the petition against an order by the Muzaffarnagar court and the woman will have to approach the Allahabad high court.

In the July 7 order, justice Sharma also noted that UP law against conversion was not valid in Delhi.

The petition challenged an order by a Muzaffarnagar court’s order of April 4, 2023 that summoned the woman and her mother in a case of forcible conversion. She also contested the summons sent by Muzaffarnagar SSP’s office on March 18.

The woman contested the order to invoke the UP law against her, saying that for the duration of her marriage, she and her husband stayed in Delhi and not UP.

According to her plea, she married her estranged husband in October 2014 as per catholic ceremony under the Christian Marriage Act, 1872 since she was a Christian and he was a Hindu. The plea alleged that after some years of marriage, the husband started subjecting her to domestic violence and she left with her children in April, 2022.

She said several matrimonial disputes were pending between the two sides, including complaints of domestic violence, divorce petition, guardianship petitions.

Justice Sharma noted that the husband’s place of residence was Muzaffarnagar, and he arrived with his daughters to reside at this place in September, 2022,

The bench added that it would be incorrect to hold at the outset that the concerned court in Muzaffarnagar did not have the territorial jurisdiction to entertain the application filed by her husband. The high court added that it was not disputed that an order for registration of FIR is amenable to the revisional jurisdiction, and thus, the petitioner has the remedy to file an appropriate petition before the concerned court in Uttar Pradesh.

“The appropriate forums for the petitioner to raise such arguments will be the concerned court where the revision petition may lie against the impugned order or the same may be challenged before the High Court of Allahabad, as per law. Thus, the courts at Uttar Pradesh will have necessary jurisdiction to deal with the present case