Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021

In News 

• Recently, Gujarat High Court granted protection to interfaith couples from harassment under The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021.

Major Points of ruling 

• The Gujarat High Court ruled that some sections of the Act will not apply to a marriage that did not involve force, fraud or allurement.
  • The order applies to Sections 3, 4, 4A to 4C, 5, 6 and 6A of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021.

• This interim order is to protect the parties which solemnised interfaith marriages from unnecessary harassment.
• Background 

• The court acted on a petition filed by the Gujarat chapter of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind challenging the constitutional validity of some of the amended sections.
  • The act was challenged in the high court by a petitioner who argued that it allows “anyone to lodge a complaint” and “criminalises inter-religious marriages.
  • In the petition, it has been argued that the law goes against the basic principles of marriage and the right to propagate, profess and practice religion as enshrined in Article 25 of the Constitution.

• State Advocate General Kamal Trivedi told the court that there was no “ban on interfaith marriages” in the State but defended the new law saying that marriages cannot be the tool for “forceful conversion”.

About Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021

• The latest Act has amended the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003 with some stringent provisions against any individual or institution indulging in forcible religious conversion by marriage.
• Gujarat became the third Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state to pass such legislation. In February this year, Uttar Pradesh passed the Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Bill, 2021. In March, Madhya Pradesh passed the Freedom of Religion Bill, 2020.
•  Key Provisions 
  • Section 3 : In the new amendment, Section 3 of the law defines what is “forcible conversion”. 
    • It says “no person shall convert or attempt to convert any person from one religion to another by use of force, or by allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or by getting a person married or by aiding a person to get married, nor shall any person abet such conversion”.

•  Section 4: As per Section 4, people found guilty of violating the provisions of Section 3 will face up to three years of imprisonment and a fine of ?50,000. 
  • If the victim is a minor, a woman or from SC or ST community, then the jail term will be four years with a fine of ?one lakh.

• Section 4A prescribes punishment of imprisonment in the range of 3 to 5 years for unlawful conversion.
• Section 4B declares marriages by unlawful conversion as void. 
• Section 4C deals with offences of organizations doing the unlawful conversion. 
• Section 5 of the law mandates that religious priests must take prior permission from the district magistrate for converting any person from one religion to another. 
  • Moreover, the one who got converted also needs to “send an intimation” to the district magistrate in a prescribed form.
• Section 6 : as per Section 6, prior sanction of the DM or a sub-divisional magistrate is necessary to start prosecution against the accused. 

• However, as per Section 6A, the burden of proof is on the accused “who has caused the conversion”.

• Objectives and need: 
  •  It aims to bring in new sections that penalise forcible or fraudulent religious conversion through marriage, citing several incidents of alleged conversion through marriages.

Source: TH