The Delhi High Court decided on Friday, January 19, that a person who converts to a different religion in order to marry someone of that faith must file an affidavit stating that they are aware of the implications and repercussions of their decision. A particular mention of succession, divorce, custody, and religious rights must be included in the affidavit. The Court has issued detailed rules that authorities must follow in marriages that occur after conversion. The Court also provided instructions on how to record victims of sexual assault statements under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma made this decision.
What was stated in the Delhi High Court’s ruling?
The High Court underlined that obtaining informed permission and full understanding from the person undergoing the conversion is the most important requirement in the religious conversion process for the purpose of marriage. In order to ensure that consent to religious conversion is given voluntarily and after fully understanding the consequences of such action, the Court stated, “To achieve this, it becomes paramount to furnish and inform the individual with exhaustive information concerning the religious doctrines, customs, and practices associated with the chosen faith, which includes an explanation of the tenets, rituals, and societal expectations inherent in religious conversion.”
The High Court went on to say, “The same shall be in Hindi as well, in addition to any other language preferred to be employed by such authority, where the prospective convert speaks and understands Hindi. When a potential convert speaks and understands a language other than Hindi, that language may be employed.
In addition, the High Court stated that “evidence of age, marital history, and marital status as well as an affidavit stating that the conversion is being undertaken voluntarily after understanding the implications and consequences related to marital divorce, succession, custody, and religious rights, etc.”
Judge Swarana Kanta Sharma explained that since people are already familiar with their original faith, these directives do not apply to those who return to it. The Court further declared that weddings performed in accordance with the 1954 Special Marriage Act are not covered by these standards.
The guidelines are intended to help naive, uneducated, susceptible adolescent couples who may enter into such unions after conversions make well-informed decisions. They do this by helping them fully understand the profound implications of such a conversion, which have far-reaching consequences that go beyond the immediate union and affect their laws and various aspects of life.
What rules apply to the recording of statements under Section 164 CrPC?
Additionally, the High Court released the following rules for recording Section 164 CrPC statements: The statement needs to be in a language that the victim can understand and shouldn’t be automatically recorded. The victim needs to be brought before the magistrate as soon as possible, and the victim needs to be identified by the Investigating Officer (IO) before any statement is taken. The magistrate should interact with the victim, asking questions that are appropriate for their age and level of education in order to determine their competency, verifying that the statement was given voluntarily, and going over specifics to ensure accuracy.
Both the opening questions and the remarks ought to be made in the local language rather than using pre-made forms. The victim’s exact words and account of the sexual assault must be recorded in writing. The magistrate ought to provide a certificate attesting to the truthfulness and voluntariness of the statement, verifying the victim’s comprehension, and getting signatures in the magistrate’s presence.
Guidelines released following the Maksood Ahmad case
Despite the complainant and accused being married later, the court made these orders by refusing to dismiss the First Information Report (FIR) it had received against the accused under Sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Advocate Shyam Kumar represented the petitioner, Maksood Ahmad, while Additional Standing Counsel (ASC) Sanjeev Bhandari, along with counsels Kunal Mittal, Arjit Sharma, and Rishika, represented the state.
The woman accused Maksood Ahmad of raping her on September 24, 2022, in her lawsuit. On October 18, 2022, the formal filing of the FIR took place. Notably, the woman converted to Islam and married Ahmad on October 18, 2022, the same day in history. On November 18, 2022, following his marriage, the accused, Ahmad, was taken into custody by the authorities.
The woman disclosed to Ahmad that she had already been divorced from her first spouse. Nevertheless, the Court noted that this assertion lacked supporting evidence. Remarkably, Ahmad was already married when the accuser married him.
The High Court received a request to suppress the FIR on the grounds that the complainant and the accused are not lawfully married. The couple’s current situation as husband and wife, sharing a home with the woman’s two first-married children, was the basis of the disagreement. Additionally, the woman stated that she was eager to have the FIR invalidated.
The complainant was not officially divorced from her first spouse at the time of her marriage to the accused, Judge Swarana Kanta Sharma emphasised, rendering her unfit to marry again. The Court emphasised that in instances filed under Section 376 of the IPC, the complainant and the accused’s subsequent marriage should not automatically result in the dismissal of the FIRs.
“This Court also views such marriages with suspicion, and the accused’s sincerity is also unclear,” the High Court declared. “In this case, the marriage was solemnised within ten days of the FIR being registered, following the prosecutrix’s conversion to Islam. It is not yet clear whether the religious conversion was done with the intention of marrying the prosecutrix exclusively or of secretly projecting to the prosecutrix that she was now married to the accused and that they could now approach the courts for bail and the quashing of the FIR.”
