Criminal law cannot be allowed to be made a tool of harassment of innocent persons on the basis of completely incredulous material, the Supreme Court said Friday as it quashed FIRs against Rajendra Bihari Lal, Vice-Chancellor of Utar Pradesh’s Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS), and others for alleged religious conversions to Christianity.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra quashed five FIRs registered under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. Regarding one of the FIRs, the court noted that it was lodged at the instance of a VHP leader with respect to an alleged mass conversion event at Fatehpur in April 2022. Quashing it, Justice Pardiwal

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