On October 17, India’s Supreme Court quashed all criminal proceedings against Christians accused of mass conversion, delivering a scathing rebuke to authorities who used the criminal justice system as a “tool to harass innocent people.”
The 158-page judgment by Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra vindicated Pastor Vijay Masi of the Evangelical Church of India in Fatehpur, dozens of employees of Broadwell Christian Hospital, employees of Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS) in Prayagraj, and others named in Uttar Pradesh’s anti-conversion policy from April 2022 onwards. law.
“It cannot be allowed that the criminal law becomes a tool of harassment against innocent people and allows the prosecution authorities to initiate prosecutions on a whim based on completely unbelievable materials,” the court said, quashing first information reports (FIRs) Nos. 224/2022, 47/2023, 54/2023, 55/2023 and 60/2023. Consequential Legal Proceedings.
This vindication comes after the acquittal of the first Christian charged under the ‘anti-conversion’ law in Uttarakhand, with pastor Nandan Singh being acquitted after a four-year battle.
The ordeal for Christians in Uttar Pradesh began on Maundy Thursday, April 14, 2022. Hindu extremists from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) besieged Pastor Mashiha’s church service, locked the gates and called the police, claiming that 90 Hindus were being forcibly converted to Christianity. Pastor Masi was arrested along with 35 other Christians and initially released on bail after three days, but was re-arrested in October 2022 and held for more than 100 days, Morning Star News reported in February 2023.
The Supreme Court ruled that the first FIR filed by VHP vice-president Himanshu Dikshit against 35 named and 20 unknown persons was legally flawed as it was lodged by a third party and not the alleged victims. Under Section 4 of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion Act, before the 2024 amendment, only the aggrieved person or his relatives could file such complaints, but the court said this provision was meant to prevent persistent complaints by “nosy groups”.
In January 2023, nine months after the first incident, four more FIRs were suddenly registered by people claiming to be victims of the alleged mass conversion. FIR Nos. 54, 55 and 60 of 2023 have named 47 accused and 20 unknown persons respectively, with many of the same Christians appearing in more than one complaint. The Supreme Court found that these subsequent charges and subsequent investigations had significant credibility issues.
The court noted that the witness statements were “circular” or mechanically reproduced and that the three affidavits filed by the alleged victim were identical except for the name of the accused. The electronically stamped papers of these affidavits bear time stamps of 10:54 a.m., 10:55 a.m., and 10:52 a.m., indicating that they were prepared mechanically.
In one glaring error revealed by the court, Sanjay Singh and Pramod Kumar Dixit said in their affidavits that the name on the Aadhaar card had been changed from ‘Rajesh Kumar Dwivedi’ to ‘Rajesh Kumar Samson’, when neither was actually named Rajesh Kumar Dwivedi.
“In view of the inconsistencies we have argued, there is no need to say anything more about the reliability of the affidavits filed by the aforesaid three victim witnesses,” the court said.
Most damningly, the court found that the complainant in the January 2023 FIR had given completely contradictory statements during the initial investigation in April 2022. Virendra Kumar, one of the complainants who filed FIR No. 54/2023 claiming that he was a victim of forced conversion, told the police on April 15, 2022 that he was not a victim at all, but rather a member of the VHP who accompanied Himanshu Dixit. church.
“The mere fact that the complainant in FIR No. 54/2023 has completely reversed course from the statement he had made during the course of investigation in FIR No. 224/2022 and that he admitted in his earlier statement that he had accompanied the informant in FIR No. 224/2022 can easily be inferred with regard to the circumstances that led to the registration of several subsequent FIRs,” the court said.
Although the verdict provided legal vindication, it was too late to undo more than three years of suffering for dozens of Christians whose lives were destroyed by false charges.
The Rev. Edwin J. Wesley, general secretary of the Evangelical Church of India, told Morning Star News that the Fatehpur incident was a “premeditated targeting of the Christian community.”
“Church members are experiencing a lot of pain, trauma, stress and depression. Many have had to quit their jobs and move to other states,” Wesley said. “All this happened because the police tracked them down, put them in jail, and detained them for long periods of time. Many of them suffer from severe depression and need medical attention to recover.”
Wesley said the church fully cooperated with the four special investigation teams formed by the government and reiterated that all those worshiping at the church were Christians and members of the ECI church and mission hospital, none of whom had converted.
“But the police weren’t ready to believe it,” he said. “Now, the Supreme Court judgment has quashed four FIRs. This makes it very clear that not a single witness could be produced in court to substantiate their claims that the 90 Hindus had converted.”
Pastor Jose Prakash George, who heads an independent church and lives on the Mission Hospital premises, was arrested in February 2023, 10 months after the first incident, and spent five months in Fatehpur district jail before being released on bail in June 2023.
“They had no evidence that any conversion was happening here because nothing was happening here,” Pastor George told Morning Star News. “It was all a hoax, and then they wanted to prove it. We prayed, and continue to pray, for the Lord to reveal the truth. And that’s what happened.”
Pastor George said a total of 68 people have been named in various FIRs, many of whom have appeared in multiple complaints, and 68 households have been affected. Nine people were jailed with him, including four women, one teenager and four men. Five children aged between 11 and 17 were also among those named in the FIR. A 17-year-old was jailed after authorities falsely recorded his age as 23 on official documents. One girl was “shipped out late at night” to avoid arrest, he said.
The financial and emotional burden on the family was devastating. Most of those accused were poor workers at Mission Hospital, earning between 7,000 and 10,000 rupees (about $79 to $113) a month. All their savings were spent on litigation, as they had to travel up to eight locations, some more than 40 kilometers away, to record statements and appear for trial in four different FIRs.
“I have seen parents crying like children because they could not even give their children a glass of milk and sometimes food,” said Pastor George. “Many children have been out of school for more than two years. We could have endured the violence, but as pastors we cannot tolerate the suffering of children. To this day, no matter what church we belong to, we cry and pray for the children. Many children’s futures have been ruined.”
He said his own wife was imprisoned, threatened with losing his job, and his children were subjected to constant harassment. In prison, he and other Christians were ridiculed and scorned for their involvement in proselytism charges.
“The district court and the high court didn’t listen to us,” he said. “They didn’t even want to touch our files. We changed many benches in the high court, but we didn’t get any relief.”
J. Merrin, senior administrative director at Broadwell Christian Hospital, said about 57 staff members were transferred or lost their jobs because of the FIR. The staff named in the complaint had to be relocated to other hospitals within the Emmanuel Hospital Association network of 19 mission hospitals in northern India for their safety.
“Most of them were experiencing severe stress that affected their health as well as other things,” Melin told Morning Star News. “About 57 of them were transferred, and many lost their jobs.”
After the Supreme Court ruling, she said one of her staff members told her, “Now you can find a good partner for your daughter.” When I asked him why now, he explained that no marriage proposal would come while the FIR was against him.
The hospital’s community care program was severely disrupted, with livelihoods and health initiatives suspended, with only palliative care operations continuing. Due to the insecurity, the hospital was unable to renew the contract, and local staff who refused to relocate lost their jobs.
“I can say we won the case and got a favorable verdict,” Melin said. “But the damage has already been done in the last three years.”
She recalled a time when a mob of Hindu extremists prevented patients from coming to the hospital and told them the hospital was closed.
“Our 50-bed hospital was always full, but we started seeing only five to seven patients per day, and as a result, our income was significantly reduced,” Melin said.
Although the Supreme Court judgment noted that charges had already been filed in all the FIRs by the time the case reached the Supreme Court, the court found that the quality of material collected by the investigating authorities “fails to create any confidence as to the integrity of the investigation.”
The court referred to its May 2024 oral observation that parts of the Uttar Pradesh law on religious conversion appear to violate Article 25 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion. A separate constitutional challenge to the 2021 law is pending before the Supreme Court.
Pastor Wesley said the Fatehpur incident exemplified a systematic attack on India’s Christian minority.
“Fatehpur is a pertinent example of a planned attack on minorities for their faith in Christ,” he said. “We knew from the beginning that the police would not prevail in these cases because we have made our position clear that we are not proselytizing anyone and that we are free to worship in our own religious places. We are free to preach our practices and promote the constitutional rights given to us by this country.”
Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014, religious rights advocates say the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s hostile attitude toward non-Hindus has fueled attacks on Christians by Hindu extremists across the country.
India was ranked 11th on Christian advocacy group Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List as the country in which it is most difficult to become a Christian, up from 31st in 2013, before the Modi government took office.
