The top court in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh has declined to quash a case accusing a Catholic nun of illegal religious conversion, which she and her supporters dismiss as fabricated.
The Jabalpur bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court said the case against Sisters of Destitute Sister Bhagya, working in Satna diocese, “is not fit for quashing.”
The court sought criminal proceedings against the nun, former principal of Sacred Heart Convent High School in Khajuraho, Chhatarpur district.
The single-judge bench of Justice Vinay Saraf also said that “the allegations are sufficient to put the petitioner on trial” in the March 9 ruling, which was publicly released on March 14.
The case was filed against the nun in February 2021, when the nun was the school principal.
Ruby Singh, a teacher of the school, whose services were terminated in 2020, allegedly complained to the police against the nun.
The school authorities say Singh was dismissed following complaints about her poor teaching quality.
But Singh, who joined in 2016, alleged that she was dismissed for refusing to the nun’s pressure to abandon her Hindu faith and become a Catholic.
She complained that the nun had violated the state’s stringent anti-conversion law that criminalizes religious conversion through any force, allurement, or fraudulent means.
The nun denied the allegations as fabricated and accused the teacher of taking revenge for the dismissal.
Sisters of the Destitute provincial Sister Smitha Vembilly, based in the national capital New Delhi, said they would continue to fight for justice.
“Now we have the option to challenge the order in the Supreme Court, the top court in the country, or face the trial as directed by the high court and prove her innocence in the trial court,” the nun told UCA News.
A Catholic priest who is monitoring the case told UCA News on March 16 that “the High Court order does not mean that the nun is guilty."
The priest who sought anonymity alleged that the case is “based on a false statement from the complainant, and the probe agency had not found any material evidence to substantiate the charges.”
Madhya Pradesh is among the 12 Indian states that enacted strict anti-conversion laws.
Christian leaders alleged that hardline Hindu groups and activists abuse the laws to file false conversion cases against Christians who work among the poor and the downtrodden in society.
Bishops, priests, nuns, and laypeople are among those facing a series of such cases in Madhya Pradesh and other states, mostly ruled by the pro-Hindu Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP).
About 80 percent of Madhya Pradesh’s estimated 72 million people are Hindus, as per official records. Less than one percent are Christians.