By Scroll Staff
The Allahabad High Court has held that no permission is needed for holding a religious prayer meeting on private property in Uttar Pradesh as long as the activity remains within private premises.
The court, however, said that if such a meeting has to “spill over the public road or public property”, the petitioners must inform the police and, if needed, secure permissions.
A two-judge bench was responding to petitions by Christian bodies Maranatha Full Gospel Ministries and Emmanuel Grace Charitable Trust. The organisations said in their petitions that they submitted several representations seeking to organise religious congregations in their private premises, but received no response from the authorities.
A division bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Siddharth Nandan took note of the Uttar Pradesh government’s submission that there is no legal requirement for permission to be sought for such gatherings.
Religious gatherings form part of the fundamental right guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution, which deals with the freedom of religion, the court said.
The judges further said that the state may decide whether any protection needs to be provided, and the manner in which it would do so.
“However, it is a concomitant duty on the State to ensure that property, rights and life of the petitioner are protected at all cost,” the bench said while disposing of the petitions. “How this is done is entirely discretion of the police.”
This story was originally published in scroll.in.