The Allahabad High Court has ordered the production of a 31-year-old man before it on September 16, on a habeas corpus plea alleging that he is being illegally detained by his father after he converted to Islam and married, with the State authorities said to have facilitated the detention.
Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has directed the State authorities and a private respondent to produce a 31-year-old man before it on September 16, on a habeas corpus petition alleging that he is being held in illegal custody by his father after he renounced Hinduism, embraced Islam and married a woman against his father’s wishes [Ayush Malik and Another v. State of U.P. and 3 Others].
Justice Sandeep Jain, issuing notice on the plea, held that the allegations of illegal detention and of the involvement of State functionaries in facilitating it were “serious in nature” and warranted immediate consideration. The allegations set out below are those of the petitioner; the Court has recorded only a prima facie view for the limited purpose of ordering production, and nothing has been finally determined.
The petitioner’s case
According to counsel for the petitioner, the corpus, Ayush Malik, aged about 31, had of his own free will and without any coercion, undue influence or inducement renounced Hinduism and embraced Islam, and had thereafter solemnised a marriage with Chandni Qureshi, against the wishes of his father, the fourth respondent. The petition contends that, aggrieved by this, the father lodged a “false and motivated” First Information Report against the man’s wife and her relatives.
The core of the habeas corpus plea is the allegation that, in collusion with the father, the State authorities and their functionaries facilitated the illegal detention of the corpus, unlawfully depriving him of his personal liberty and keeping him in his father’s custody with the active assistance of the State machinery, a claim counsel said was borne out by the documents annexed to the petition. The petition was filed by one Sultan, described as a friend of the corpus, who stated that the corpus had approached him seeking assistance to secure his release from the alleged detention.
The FIR under the anti-conversion law
The FIR at the centre of the dispute was registered on June 6, 2026, at Police Station Shamli, District Shamli, against the wife of the corpus and her relatives. It invokes Sections 3 and 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, along with several provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including Sections 308(5), 351(3), 61(2), 338, 336(3) and 318(4).
The Uttar Pradesh anti-conversion law prohibits religious conversion by misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or fraudulent means, or by marriage, and Section 5 prescribes the penalties for a contravention. The petitioner’s position, as recorded by the Court, is that the conversion was voluntary and free of any such vitiating factor, and that the FIR is a device deployed by the father in response to the marriage. Whether the conversion falls within or outside the Act is not a question the Court decided at this stage; the FIR names the wife and her relatives, and its validity is not what the present habeas corpus order turns on.
The Court’s order
Having heard counsel and perused the record, the Court recorded that it prima facie appeared that the corpus had voluntarily renounced Hinduism and embraced Islam and had then married against his father’s wishes, and that the father had thereafter lodged the FIR. Treating the allegations of illegal detention and State involvement as serious, the Court issued notice to the fourth respondent, directed that steps be taken within three days, and ordered the State authorities and the fourth respondent to ensure the production of the corpus before the Court on September 16.
Significantly, the Court built in a consequence for non-compliance: if the corpus is not produced on the date fixed, the concerned State respondents must file personal affidavits disclosing the reasons for the non-production and the steps taken to secure it. The matter has been listed as fresh on September 16.
Why the order matters
The order illustrates the classic function of the writ of habeas corpus, the great constitutional remedy against unlawful detention. Where a person is alleged to be held against his will, whether by the State or by a private party, the court’s first and most urgent task is to have the person produced before it, so that it can ascertain directly, from the individual, whether the detention is lawful and whether he is where he is by his own choice. By ordering production within a short timeframe and attaching an affidavit requirement to any failure to comply, the Court has moved to establish the one fact that matters most at this stage: the free will and present wishes of the person said to be detained.
The case also sits within a wider and sensitive body of litigation around the adult’s right to choose in matters of faith and marriage. Courts have repeatedly affirmed that a person of majority age is entitled to decide his or her own religion and life partner, and that neither family disapproval nor the machinery of the State can lawfully override that choice, while, on the other side, anti-conversion statutes seek to guard against conversions procured by fraud, coercion or inducement. Which of those frames fits a given case is a fact-specific question, and this order does not resolve it: the Court has only recorded a prima facie impression and called for the man to be brought before it. What he says on September 16, about whether he is detained and whether his conversion and marriage were of his own volition, will be decisive. Nothing has been finally decided, the allegations of collusion and illegal detention remain untested, and the FIR against the wife and her relatives is likewise yet to be adjudicated.
Case Title: Ayush Malik and Another v. State of U.P. and 3 Others [Habeas Corpus Writ Petition No. 1307 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Sandeep Jain
Date of Order: September 9, 2026