Illegal conversion case: SC to hear on Dec 19 plea by accused against HC order for surrender

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Tuesday a plea by Rajendra Bihari Lal, Vice Chancellor of Uttar Pradesh's Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology, and Sciences (SHUATS) and six others challenging the Allahabad High Court order refusing to quash an FIR related to alleged religious conversion.

Fearing arrest, the vice chancellor and others have knocked the doors of the apex court which has set up a vacation bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and KV Viswanathan to hear their plea against the December 11 order of the high court asking them to surrender by December 20.

The case in which they have sought relief pertains to allegations of rape, illegal religious conversion and immoral trafficking. The FIR against them was lodged by a woman on November 4, 2023 in Hamirpur district of Uttar Pradesh.

"Since the petitioners are accused of heinous offence, we direct that they should surrender before the majesty of the Court on or before December 20, 2023 and apply for regular bail. The bail application of the accused petitioners shall be heard and decided by the court concerned thoroughly on merits as expeditiously as possible unaffected by any of the observations," the high court said in its December 11 order.

The woman, a former contractual employee of the university, had accused them of sexual exploitation and religious conversion after offering her a job at the university.

Lal and other accused, who are also employees of the university, contended before the high court that the FIR was driven by malafide as she had been sacked.

The high court in its order said "At this stage, it would be unjust and improper to stall the investigation by the police. This a brutal and heinous crime against woman. In fact, it is too far to imagine that for sake of retaliation a lady would put her dignity and honour at stake and make it public, just to falsely implicate the accused petitioners. For a lady, dignity and honour is a valuable and non-negotiable asset."