A plea before Supreme Court of India raised allegations against Tata Consultancy Services Nashik office involving harassment and conversion claims. Petition sought directions to curb fraudulent practices, citing complaints by eight female employees.
A plea was filed before the Supreme Court following allegations of religious conversion and sexual harassment involving a multinational company in Nashik. The petition sought directions aimed at controlling what it described as deceitful religious conversion.
The plea comes in the wake of allegations reported by eight female employees working at TCS’ Nashik office, which include sexual harassment and claims of forced religious conversion.
The petition was filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and argued that deceitful religious conversion is not only a threat to sovereignty, secularism, democracy, and liberty, but also a menace to fraternity, dignity, unity, and national integration.
It further sought directions to both the Union and State Governments to take strict measures to curb religious conversion practices, including:
- setting up special courts to deal with religious conversion-related cases; and
- declaring that the sentence for deceitful religious conversion should be consecutive, not concurrent.
The plea also stated that the Right to Freedom of Religion does not include the right to convert others through fraud, force, coercion, or cheating.
Also Read: “Religious Conversion Open to All, But Requires Proof to be Voluntary”: Allahabad HC
The petition argued that Article 25 grants freedom of conscience, profession, practice and propagation of religion, but only subject to public order, health and morality.
It said,
“All persons will have the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion and not that all persons will have the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion. It means the right to profess, practice and propagate religion is free to everyone, but cannot be practised absolutely or freely.
The plea added that the freedom to act on one’s religion is not unlimited and emphasized that constitutional freedoms must be read with “reasonable restrictions.”
Also Read: BREAKING||SC Grants Bail in Religious Conversion Case
The plea said,
“The expression does not mean that every person is free to do whatever they wish in the name of religion. Rather, it means that everyone has the right freely to profess, practise and propagate, but this freedom itself is subject to reasonable restrictions,”
The petition was filed by Upadhyay in connection with his pending matter seeking directions to the Centre and states to take strong steps against fraudulent religious conversions.
The plea also noted that in 2023, the Supreme Court observing that religious conversion is a serious matter that should not be given a political colour had sought the assistance of Attorney General R. Venkataramani on the issue.
FOR MORE LEGAL UPDATES FOLLOW US ON YOUTUBE