India’s Allahabad High Court has ruled that distributing Bibles and preaching Christianity are not crimes under Uttar Pradesh’s 2021 anti-conversion law, as long as there’s no force, fraud, or coercion involved. The court slammed authorities for pursuing a case without an identifiable victim or complaint of pressured conversion.
“The sine qua non for invoking Section 3 of the Act, 2021 prima facie would be coming forward of a ‘person’ to allege that either he has been converted to any other religion or is being coerced or given some allurement to convert to some other religion,” the bench stated.
Justices Abdul Moin and Babita Rani emphasized that peaceful religious expression is protected, and anti-conversion statutes can’t be misused to target lawful faith activities. The ruling also faulted the Uttar Pradesh Police for filing charges without evidence of wrongdoing.
“Merely distributing Bibles and preaching Christian doctrine, without any allegation of forcible or fraudulent conversion, does not constitute any offence,” the court remarked.
This decision reinforces the principle of religious liberty, affirming that sharing Christian doctrine remains lawful when done voluntarily and respectfully.