Guj guv gives assent to bill against ‘fraudulent conversion’ by marriage

Gujarat governor Acharya Devvrat has given his assent to an amendment bill, which provides for a prison sentence of up to ten years for fraudulent or forcible conversion by marriage, a state minister said on Saturday. The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which was passed by the state Legislative Assembly on April 1 this year, has been approved by the governor along with seven other Bills, state Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said in a statement.

With this, the governor has approved all the 15 bills that were passed during the budget session of the Assembly as he had earlier cleared seven other bills, he added.

As per the amended Freedom of Religion Bill, a forcible “conversion by marriage, or by getting a person married, or by aiding a person to get married” shall invite imprisonment of three to five years and a fine of up to ₹2 lakh. If the victim is a minor, woman, Dalit or tribal, the offender may be punished with a jail term of four to seven years and a fine of not less than ₹3 lakh. If an organisation violates the law, the person in charge can be sentenced to minimum of three years and maximum of ten years in jail. During a poll rally in Vadodara on February 14 this year, chief minister Vijay Rupani had said his government would bring a strict law against ‘‘love jihad’‘ in the state. “Such activities being done in the name of love jihad will not be tolerated...the BJP government will bring strict laws against love jihad in the coming days,” he had said.

Before Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh also enacted similar laws banning ‘fraudulent’ conversions through marriage.

THE OFFENDERS MAY BE PUNISHED WITH A JAIL TERM OF 4 TO 7 YEARS AND A FINE OF NOT LESS THAN ₹3L

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