The Allahabad High Court on March 18, 2026, dismissed a petition filed by the Reverend Father Vineet Vincent Pereira, a Catholic priest from Mau district in Uttar Pradesh, refusing to quash a criminal case registered against him under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code. Justice Saurabh Srivastava, in a single bench ruling stated that the allegations against the priest prima facie fall within the ambit of the provision and that the matter must go to trial.
The case, registered under Case No. 304 of 2023 at Police Station Muhammadabad in Mau district, was based on an FIR alleging that Father Pereira frequently stated during prayer meetings that there is only one religion, Christianity, and that such statements hurt the sentiments of the Hindu community. Police filed a chargesheet on February 19, 2024, and the Judicial Magistrate, Mau, took cognisance of the offence on May 18, 2024.
Father Pereira challenged the chargesheet and the cognisance order before the High Court by filing Application No. 47677 of 2025 under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, which corresponds to the earlier Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. His counsel, Gaurav Tripathi, argued before the court that the priest had been falsely implicated to harass him, that the investigating officer had found no evidence of illegal religious conversion, and that the chargesheet was filed without a fair investigation.
The court did not accept these submissions. Justice Srivastava held that India is a secular state where people of all faiths live together as enshrined in the Constitution and stated in the order: "It is wrong for any religion to claim that it is the only true religion as it implies a disparagement of other faiths." The bench found that the narration in the FIR, read alongside Section 295A, establishes a prima facie case. It referred to the Supreme Court's judgement in S.W. Palanitkar and Others v. State of Bihar and Another (2002) 1 SCC 241, which held that the test at the cognisance stage is whether there is "sufficient ground for proceeding" and not "sufficient ground for conviction." The court also cited Nupur Talwar v. CBI (2012) 11 SCC 465, which reiterated that a magistrate is not expected to hold a mini trial when taking cognisance.
Church authorities told Catholic Connect that they plan to appeal the verdict before the Supreme Court.
This is not the first time Father Pereira has faced trouble in Uttar Pradesh. In November 2018, a mob attacked him while he was conducting a prayer service at Ishwar Dham, a four-room rented house in Gohana town in Mau district, where he lived with few residents. Members of Hindu Yuva Vahini, a radical Hindu youth group, allegedly barged into the premises, beat one of the inmates, and assaulted the priest when he intervened. Police subsequently took Father Pereira into custody and charged him with rioting and unlawful assembly. The Diocese of Varanasi's vicar general, Father John Abraham, told the press at the time that none of the people who attended the prayers at the ashram had converted to Christianity.
Father Anand Mathew of the Indian Missionary Society in Varanasi, who organised an interfaith conference in November 2018 condemning the attack, called Father Pereira "a young saintly and holy priest" who looked after the sick. Leaders from Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities at that conference had strongly condemned the assault.
Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state with over 225 million people, has one of the country's smallest Christian populations, estimated at around 350,000, or 0.18 percent of the state's population. Christian leaders in the state have previously said that attacks on the minority community increased after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017.
The criminal proceedings against Father Pereira will now continue before the Judicial Magistrate in Mau, where the prosecution must prove malicious intent under Section 295A, and the accused will have the opportunity to present his defence.
