When laws move faster than courts

It has been eight years since the State of Uttarakhand enacted the Freedom of Religion Act 2018 to regulate religious conversions. While the constitutional validity of anti-conversion law remains pending before the Supreme Court, 11 other states have followed suit, enacting similar laws under the rhetoric of preventing “love-jihad”. On 19 February 2026, the Gujarat Registration of Marriages (Amendment) Bill was introduced in the Gujarat Assembly, raising serious concerns of expanding state control over matters pending judicial review.

Anti-conversion laws are state-level legislation that prohibit religious conversion carried out through force, fraud, coercion, or inducement. A majority of these laws mandate prior notice to authorities and permit state inquiry into the purpose of conversion, particularly in cases linked to marriage. States are empowered to impose criminal penalties for non-compliance with these requirements, including life imprisonment. Additionally, many of these laws reverse the burden of proof, requiring the accused to demonstrate that the conversion was voluntary and lawful, rather than requiring the state to prove the wrongdoing. In 2020, Citizens for Justice and Peace, the petitioners who filed the challenge in Court, argued that these provisions subject personal belief and intimate choice to state verification.

This raises a potential conflict between the fundamental rights to religious freedom and decisional autonomy under Articles 14, 21, and 25 of the Constitution. What happens to fundamental rights when judicial review is pending, but legislative activity continues unchanged?

A pattern of legislative expansion

Moving beyond forced conversion, the Gujarat Amendment seeks to impose further procedural restrictions on marriage by mandating parental notification and permitting marriage applications to be made public. In other words, it shifts the regulatory focus from religion to relationships, bringing state supervision into the realm of personal decision-making.

This is not an isolated attempt to extend the ambit of anti-conversion law. In Madhya Pradesh, the 2021 law mandates prior notice by any person who intends to organise conversion, either individuals or priests, and renders a marriage null and void if performed with the intent of converting a person.

Similarly, in Himachal Pradesh, the law permits state inquiry, explicitly treating conversion as a matter for criminal investigation. These provisions indicate that these laws are not to prevent coercion but scrutinise personal choices.  In 2024, Uttar Pradesh amended its 2021 anti-conversion law, increasing penalties to the extent of life imprisonment for certain offences.

The absence of a formal constitutional bar on legislative action on matters that are sub-judice has left several individuals in a scenario wherein rights are uncertain, but restrictions continue to increase.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has repeatedly deferred hearings on the validity of anti-conversion laws, with petitions pending since 2020 and interim relief still unresolved. This delay has allowed states to strengthen and operationalise such frameworks, demonstrating that judicial pendency does not create a pause—it creates an active legal field where state power continues to evolve, often in ways that may later be subjected to constitutional invalidation.

Consequently, a reshaping of fundamental freedoms has taken place, with states expanding their control and normalising intrusive administration, in the absence of judicial clarity.

Autonomy and the right to choose a partner

The petitioners rely on Shafin Jahan v Asokan K.M. (2018), to argue that the right to choose a partner is intrinsic to personal liberty under Article 21. By presuming that conversions linked to marriage lack genuine consent, the legislation undermines this very personal autonomy. Similarly, in Laxmibai Chandaragi B v State of Karnataka (2021), it emphasised that the consent of two adults is sufficient for marriage, and cannot be subordinated to familial or societal approval. By requiring parental notification, and, in effect, parental involvement: the Gujarat amendment reintroduces precisely the forms of control that these judgments sought to dismantle.

Privacy and surveillance

The petitions also argued that mandating prior notice of one’s intent to convert to a different religion amounts to an intrusive invasion of privacy. It not only compels disclosure of personal beliefs but also enables state enquiries into motives. By mandating disclosure of marriage applications to parents, the Gujarat amendment will transform a civil registration process into a system of surveillance. In KS Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), the Supreme Court recognised privacy as encompassing decisional autonomy in matters of family and intimate relationships. Such mandatory disclosures, whether through digital communication or public platforms risk subjecting couples, particularly those in interfaith or inter-caste relationships, to harassment, coercion, and violence.

Paternalism and the infantilisation of adults

State justification for such measures often rests on a rhetoric of “protecting” individuals, particularly women, from coercion or deception. However, this argument sits uneasily with the legal status of adulthood. At 18, individuals are deemed capable of voting, entering contracts, and bearing criminal responsibility. To simultaneously require parental oversight for marriage decisions reflects a form of state paternalism that undermines individual agency.

The Supreme Court cautioned against such an approach in Lata Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2006), when it recognised that family structures can be sites of coercion, particularly in cases of inter-caste or inter-faith unions. The role of the State, the Court emphasised, is to protect young couples, not to subject them to further scrutiny.

The chilling effect 

The combination of legislative expansion and judicial delay has tangible consequences. Even if the Supreme Court ultimately strikes down some or all of these laws, the interim period is marked by irreversible harms. Individuals may begin to fear exercising their rights, not because the Constitution does not protect them, but because the legal environment makes such exercise risky. Anti-conversion laws have already led to arrests, prosecutions, and heightened surveillance of interfaith relationships across several states. Reports indicate that hundreds of individuals have been subjected to criminal proceedings under these laws. With time, it normalises administrative and social scrutiny of personal choices, embedding restrictive practices into governance structures.

If the judicial review gets delayed significantly, the judgement may come after these practices have already reshaped social behavior and institutional norms. In that sense, pendency itself becomes consequential, producing effects that are difficult to reverse.

The Gujarat amendment highlights how anti-conversion legislation can extend to govern personal relationships under the guise of preventing coercion. It has to be noted that this evolution is unfolding in the shadow of an unresolved constitutional challenge. In this context, the question is no longer confined to whether these laws are constitutional. It is whether constitutional rights can meaningfully endure when their scope is continuously altered during the pendency of judicial review. While the Court deliberates, the law on the ground continues to act.

Priya Chaudhary is a research associate at the Centre for Law & Policy Research.