FCRA registration, religious conversion and constitutional secularism
Quick dive
- The Madras High Court held that religious organisations engaged in conversions should be denied FCRA registration in the case of a Zen meditation centre founded by a Christian priest.
- The court referred to FCRA provisions regulating foreign contributions and the need to examine whether activities affect India’s secular fabric and social amity.
- The trust argued that its activities were meditation and should not be labelled religious, while the court treated its own description as a Zen Buddhist religious organisation.
- The case raises questions about freedom of religion under Articles 25–28, associational activity, statutory discretion, secularism and safeguards against arbitrary denial of civil-society funding.
- exam_relevance: tests the exact FCRA-registration/conversion dispute against Articles 25–28, secularism and administrative fairness, echoing UPSC’s recurring questions on fundamental rights, NGOs and foreign funding; the court’s Zen-centre reasoning supplies a concrete constitutional controversy.
Full explanation
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