Right To Freedom of Religion

Subject – Polity

Context – Karnataka’s anti-conversion legislation

Concept –

Part III of the Indian Constitution guarantees various fundamental rights. Article 25- 28 provides for the right to freedom of religion which is largely based upon Irish Constitution.
Article 25– Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion.
Article 26– Freedom to manage religious affairs.
Article 27– Freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion.
Article 28– Freedom as to attendance at religious instruction or religious worship in certain educational institutions.

SC Case

In Stainislaus Rev. v. State of M.P, Supreme Court held that the right to propagate one’s religion means the right to communicate a person’s beliefs to another person or to expose the tenets of that faith, but would not include the right to ‘convert’ another person to the former’s faith because the latter person is “equally entitled to freedom of conscience” which words precede the word ‘propagate’.
- So, nobody has any fundamental right to convert the religion of someone without his free choice.
- Further, Court held that the word propagate does not give rise to the right to convert.