Provisions of Gujarat anti-conversion law that HC has stayed for now
The Gujarat High Court stayed key provisions of The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021 pertaining to marriages involving religious conversion of either of the two parties.
Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2021
The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021 amended the 2003 Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act.
The laws ostensibly seek to end conversion through unlawful means, specifically prohibit any conversion for marriage, even if it is with the consent of the individual except when prior sanction is obtained from the state.
Apart from UP and Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh too, have also enacted similar laws.
The new anti-conversion laws
- shift the burden of proof of a lawful religious conversion from the converted to his/her partner;
- define “allurement” for religious conversion in vague, over-broad terms;
- prescribe different jail terms based on gender; and
- legitimate the intrusion of family and the society at large to oppose inter-faith marriages.
They also give powers to the state to conduct a police inquiry to verify the intentions of the parties to convert for the purposes of marriage.