Conversion Syndicate| Supreme Court allows UP govt to file rejoinder in its plea for cancelling Maulana Kaleem's bail

Read Time: 04 minutes

Synopsis

 

Court has also allowed an affidavit to be filed on Maulana Kaleem's behalf placing on record details of his health conditions

Hearing the Uttar Pradesh's SLP on cancellation of bail granted to Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui, accused of running an illegal mass religious conversion racket in the state, the Supreme Court today has allowed time till March 19 for rejoinder submissions to be filed.

AAG Garima Prasad requested for some time to file additional submissions in response to the counter filed by Maulana.

"Bail of some other accused has been cancelled, we would like to place those details on record", a bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Sanjay Kumar was told.

Court accordingly went on to list the matter on April 2. 

Last year, Supreme Court had allowed Maulana Kaleem to attend a funeral in Uttar Pradesh, while he was barred from leaving Delhi NCR as one of the bail conditions imposed on him by Allahabad High Court in April 2023.

 Siddiqui, was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad in September 2021 for allegedly running an illegal mass religious conversion racket in Uttar Pradesh in collusion with Mohammad Umar Gautam and others.

Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui was arrested on the allegations that he illegally converted the religion of over 1000 people across the state. Allegedly, he indulged into mass conversion of the people within the State of UP from Hindu religion to Islam by making publicity of Islam through a Youtube channel.

It has been also claimed by the prosecution that a huge fund had been generated by Siddique for executing such activities which is an offence within the scope of the U.P. Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.

The case against Siddique and others was lodged under Sections 417, 120-B, 153-A, 153-B, 295-A, 298, 121-A, 123 I.P.C. and Section 3/5/8 of the U.P. Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.

Two co accused persons namely Irfan Khan @ Irfan Shaikh and Dr. Faraz Shah whose bail was rejected under similar circumstances by the trial court have already been granted bail by the Supreme Court as well as by the High Court respectively.

Case Title: State of UP Vs Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui