Allahabad HC orders UP govt to pay Rs 50,000 to man in false anti-conversion case
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Patna: The Allahabad High Court slapped a fine of Rs 75,000 on Uttar Pradesh government for continuing probe in a case charged under the state’s anti-conversion law, despite the victim stated she left home on her own free will, Scroll reported citing the Indian Express.
A division bench of Justice Abdul Moin and Justice Babita Rani issued the order responding to a petition filed by Umed alias Ubaid Khan and others, arrested and charged under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, seeking to quash a first information report lodged at the Matera police station in Bahraich district.
They were accused of abducting a woman and attempting to convert her religion.
The court ordered the release of the accused pointing out that the woman in her statement to a magistrate made it clear that she had gone to Delhi voluntarily to meet her daughter, despite this police went ahead with the probe keeping the accused in custody for one and a half months.
‘This petition is a glaring example of the state authorities failing and scrambling over each other in order to score brownie points,’ the court reportedly said.
Calling the police action ‘vexatious’, the court ordered the BJP administration to pay Rs 50,000 to the accused Khan alongside Rs 25,000 was to be deposited in the court’s Legal Aid Services.
It all began after Bahraich resident Pankaj Kumar alleged that his wife had gone missing with jewellery and cash, claiming that five men, including Khan lured her away.
Following which, Khan and others were charged with sections related to kidnapping and under the state’s anti-conversion law under Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita.
Police later added charges of criminal breach of trust, stolen property after the woman came home and gave a statement.
In her another statement before the magistrate the following day, the woman said he had left home on her own because of ‘regular domestic abuse’ by her husband and later handed over jewellery to the police.
Alongside the woman’s lawyer told the court that her previous statement was made under threat and coercion by her husband and in-laws, according to the report.