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The Supreme Court on Friday fixed for final hearing petitions seeking the quashing or clubbing of five FIRs lodged against Rajendra Bihari Lal, the vice-chancellor of the Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS) in Uttar Pradesh, and others pertaining to alleged illegal religious conversions. A bench comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the submissions made by senior lawyers, including Siddharth Dave and Mukta Gupta, and said all the nine petitions will be taken up for final disposal on May 14.

Lal and others have sought either the quashing or clubbing of the FIRs lodged against them. The cases against Lal concern offences under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 504 (intentional insult with an aim to provoke breach of peace) and 386 (extortion) of the Indian Penal Code. He has also been booked under certain provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.

Police have alleged that Lal, among the other accused, is actually a “notorious criminal” involved in 38 cases of various nature, including cheating and murder, registered across Uttar Pradesh over the last two decades. Police have also alleged that about 90 Hindus congregated at the Evangelical Church of India in Hariharganj, Fatehpur for converting to Christianity and were put under undue influence, coercion, and lured through fraud and the promise of easy money.