The order is a procedural one on a habeas corpus petition: the Court has directed that the two children, aged seven and four, be produced before it, and issued notice to the mother and her family. The father’s allegations, including of a planned religious conversion, are as yet only allegations; the Court has recorded no finding on them, and in a matter of this kind the welfare of the children is the paramount consideration the Court will ultimately apply.
Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has directed the State and private respondents to produce two minor children before it on September 25, on a habeas corpus petition filed by the children’s father alleging that his estranged wife, who has custody of them, intends to convert them to Islam [Arpit Agarwal v. State of U.P. and Others].
Justice Sandeep Jain passed the order and issued notice to the private respondents, who include the children’s mother and her parents and brother.
The petition
The petitioner is the father of the two children, a boy aged about seven and a girl aged about four, born of his marriage with his estranged wife. According to the submissions recorded by the Court, he alleged that the mother currently has custody of the children and intends to change her own religion and to convert the children as well.
He submitted that he had lodged an FIR in January 2026, at a police station in Lucknow, under Sections 115(2) and 352 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Sections 3 and 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, and that no effective action had been taken on it. He further submitted that the mother was being supported by her father, mother and brother, who were impleaded as respondents in the petition.
These are the petitioner’s allegations as recorded at the notice stage. The mother and the other respondents are yet to be heard, and nothing in them has been examined or established.
What the Court ordered
The Court issued notice to the private respondents and directed the State and the private respondents to produce the two children before it on September 25.
It further directed that if the children were not produced on that date, the official respondents would have to file personal affidavits disclosing the efforts they had made to produce them and explaining why they could not be produced. The matter has been listed as fresh for September 25.
Why it matters
The order at this stage is narrow and procedural: a direction to produce the children and to hear the parties, not a decision on custody or on any of the allegations. That distinction is worth holding onto, because a matter combining a broken marriage, a custody dispute and an allegation of religious conversion can quickly be read as more than it is at the notice stage.
The legal framework the Court will ultimately apply is settled and child-centred. In custody and guardianship disputes, including those brought by way of habeas corpus, the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration, outweighing the rival claims of the parents, and the Supreme Court has cautioned that a child is not to be treated as movable property to be transferred from one parent to another. A habeas corpus petition is a recognised route where a parent alleges that children are being wrongfully kept from them, but the Court in such cases looks past the label to what serves the children’s best interests, which is why the immediate step is to bring the children before the Court rather than to decide anything about them in their absence.
The conversion allegation sits within a specific statutory context. The UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 regulates conversions and creates offences around conversion by misrepresentation, force, undue influence or inducement, and the FIR the petitioner relies on invokes it. But the existence of an FIR reflects an allegation and the beginning of an investigation, not proof, and whether any offence under that Act is made out, and whether any conversion is in fact planned or has occurred, are questions for the investigation and, if it comes to it, the appropriate proceedings, not for a production order.
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What is not in doubt is that two young children are at the centre of a dispute between their parents, and the Court’s directions, to produce them and to hear all sides on September 25, are the ordinary and appropriate first steps. Nothing has been decided, the mother and her family are yet to place their version on record, and the allegations remain untested.
Case Title: Arpit Agarwal v. State of U.P. and Others
Bench: Justice Sandeep Jain, High Court of Judicature at Allahabad
Date of Order: September 15, 2026 | Next Listed: September 25, 2026
Status: Habeas corpus petition. Notice issued; children directed to be produced. Allegations untested; no finding recorded, and the children’s welfare remains the paramount consideration.