India’s top court admits bishops’ petition against Rajasthan law with penalties up to life imprisonment. They argue it targets minorities and inverts legal burden of proof.
Newsroom (09/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) India’s Supreme Court has opened a legal battle over religious freedom, admitting a constitutional challenge by the country’s Catholic bishops against a stringent new anti-conversion law in Rajasthan that prescribes penalties of up to life imprisonment.
The court’s move places the Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2025, under direct scrutiny for potentially violating fundamental rights. Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih admitted the petition filed by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) on Dec. 8 and ordered the state government to formally respond.
Sister Sayujya Bindhu, the lawyer and CBCI legal cell secretary who filed the petition, hailed the court’s decision. “We are happy that the Supreme Court of India has accepted our petition,” she said, arguing the law’s provisions directly contradict constitutional guarantees of the right to choose and propagate religion.
The legislation, passed on Sept. 9, makes Rajasthan the 12th Indian state to enact such restrictive measures. Its penalties are severe: 20 years in prison and a fine of 1 million rupees (US$11,000) for converting minors, women, disabled individuals, or members of lower castes and tribal communities. Mass conversions can draw life imprisonment, and using marriage as a means for conversion carries a 14-year sentence.
Critics charge that the law’s vague language facilitates the targeting of religious minorities. Bindhu highlighted terms like “allurement” and “coercion” as dangerously unclear. “Even admitting a child from a poor background in a school or providing medical care… can be misinterpreted as a case of allurement aimed at religious conversion,” she warned. This, she said, risks misrepresenting charitable work as evangelism.
A fundamental legal flaw, Bindhu argued, is the reversal of the burden of proof. “It puts the burden of proof on the accused person, rather than on the person who makes the accusation,” she stated, calling this a departure from established Indian legal principle.
CBCI spokesperson Robinson Rodrigues condemned the law as “a tool to target minority communities, especially Christians, through false allegations.” He noted the bishops had sought an immediate stay on the law’s implementation, but the court will decide that after reviewing the state’s reply.
The petition has been grouped with similar challenges seeking to suspend the Rajasthan law. However, it remains separate from broader Supreme Court proceedings examining anti-conversion laws in nine other states, including Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. The enforcement of these laws across India has already spawned numerous criminal cases against Christians and Muslims.
With this petition, India’s top judiciary begins a critical examination of where the state’s power to regulate conversion ends and the constitutional promise of religious freedom begins.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from UCA News
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