Supreme Court: While considering a Special Leave Petition challenging the interim order dated 27 August 2026 passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) concerning allegations relating to religious conversions and other activities, the Division Bench of Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Alok Aradhe, JJ., declined to interfere with the interim order but requested the High Court to first decide the objection regarding the locus of Respondent 1 to institute the PIL and thereafter examine the merits of the matter. The Court clarified that it had not expressed any opinion on the merits of the case.
The present Special Leave Petition was filed challenging the interim order dated 27 August 2026 passed by the High Court in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) concerning allegations relating to religious conversions and other activities. The petitioner questioned the locus of Respondent 1 to institute the PIL, contending that the bona fides of the petitioner in invoking the public interest jurisdiction were questionable.
The petitioner, submitted that the locus of Respondent 1 to file the PIL was questionable. On the other hand, Respondent 1, submitted that the PIL had been filed bona fide in public interest.
The Court declined to interfere with the interim order passed by the High Court. However, it requested the High Court to hear the parties and decide the objection with regard to the locus of Respondent 1 to file the PIL and thereafter examine the merits of the matter.
Clarifying that it had not expressed any opinion on the merits of the matter, the Court disposed of the Special Leave Petition along with pending applications, if any.
[Ankur Yoseph Narula v. Tejasvi Minhas, Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s). 31685 of 2026, decided on 6-11-2026]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioners: Mukul Rohatgi, Sr. Adv., Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Sr. Adv., Siddharth Batra, AOR, Ranjeeta Rohtagi, Edward Augustine George, Stephan Masih, Gunjeet Singh Syal, Chinmay Dubey, Shivani Chawla, Akshit Lunial, Mehul Gulati, Jyoti Aggarwal, Pradeep Shekhawat, Sanjivani Aggarwal, Swaraj Swarup Aggarwal, Advocates
For the Respondent: Mohan Rao, Sr. Adv., Pushkar Sharma, AOR, Maninderjit Singh Bedi, Advocate General, Rajat Bhardwaj, A.A.G., Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General, Suryaprakash V.Raju, A.S.G., Akshit Chauhan, Nikita Verma, Vinod Kumar, Sahil Malik, Vikrant Bhardwaj, Karan Sharma AOR, Zoheb Hussain, Sr. Adv., Anaam Venkatesh, Hitarth Raja, Vivek Gurnani, Bhuvan Kapoor, Anmol Chandan, Suryodaya Prakash Tiwari, Amrish Kumar- AOR, Dr Arun Kumar Yadav, B.L.N.Sanjit, Arvind Kumar Sharma, AOR, Zoheb Hossain, Sr. Adv., Nachiketa Joshi, Sr. Adv., Annam Venkatesh, Bhuvan Kapoor, Anmol Chandan, Prerna Dhall, Eklabhya Dwivedi, Vivek Gurnani, Aman Mehta, Shreekant Neelappa Terdal, AOR, Sanchar Anand, Dr Ravinder Kumar Anand, Apoorva Singhal, AOR, Rajat Rathee, Aman Kumar Thakur, Aditya Kumar, Apar Gupta, Abiha Zaidi, AOR, Pragya Jain, Yashpriya Sahran, Sahil Mander, Pritam Raman Giriya, Divyangi Gupta, Aryan Sarawgi Ronit Rampuriya, Guru Krishna Kumar, Sr. Adv., Yashraj Singh Bundela AOR, Arpit Garg, Advocates
