Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court has asked the state government if it has any objection to quashing of an FIR against the husband, in-laws of a woman and others filed under an amended anti-conversion law when the wife of the main accused has said forcible interfaith marriage allegations levelled in the FIR were not true.
Justice Ilesh J Vora on Wednesday asked the government to file an affidavit if it seeks to oppose the quashing of the FIR in the case, the first under the law, even after the wife of the accused has said a petty domestic dispute in the family, which led her to file a complaint against her husband and in-laws, has been amicably resolved.
The petitioner wife has sought that the the FIR be quashed as the angle of forcible conversion by marriage was added to the FIR filed by her against her husband and in-laws by "certain religio-political groups" looking to "communalise" the issue.
She said her complaint before the Gotri police in Vadodara was nothing more than the issue of "petty and trivial domestic matrimonial issue." The court granted time to the government to verify the claims related to the settlement of matter between the complainant and the accused, and kept the matter for further hearing on September 20.
The wife of the accused had approached the HC along with her husband, in-laws and the priest who solemnised the marriage, all (numbering 8) seeking quashing of the first FIR lodged in Vadodara under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act 2021, two days later it was amended and notified on June 15.
Apart from various sections of the amended - the accused were also charged under various sections of the IPC and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act after their arrest. The Act lays down stringent punishment for forcible conversion through marriage.
The wife of the accused, on whose complaint the FIR was lodged, told the HC in her affidavit that the FIR against her husband, in-laws and others was an "incorrect, untrue and exaggerated version of the information given by the informant which arose out of a petty and trivial domestic matrimonial dispute."