Gujarat / High Court stays sections of the law on inter-religious marriages

Zoom News : Aug 19, 2021, 06:47 PM

The Gujarat excessive court on Thursday ordered a period in-between live on the implementation of positive sections touching on interfaith marriages withinside the state’s new anti-conversion law. While turning in the judgment, a department bench comprising Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Biren Vaishnav dominated that no First Information Report (FIR) may be registered except its miles proved that the union become solemnised through “coercion, pressure, or greed.”


Here’s all you want to understand about the legislation:


(1.) The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021, become exceeded via way of means of the state legislative meeting with a majority on June 15 this year. It becomes moved withinside the meeting on April 1 via way of means of Gujarat domestic minister Pradipsinh Jadeja.


(2.) It goals to prevent marriages from taking vicinity through “pressured or lured spiritual conversion.” It proposes imprisonment for a duration of 3 to 5 years, at the side of first-rate of up to ₹2 lakh fin such cases.


(3.) However, each imprisonment and penalty are better if the alleged sufferer is a minor, woman, Dalit or tribal. In one of these cases, if determined guilty, a person may be jailed for 4 to seven years, with a penalty of now no longer much less than ₹three lakh.


(4.) If a company is involved, the individual heading it faces a prison time of up to ten years and first-rate of up to ₹5 lakh.


(5.) The act become challenged withinside the excessive court via way of means of a petitioner who argued that it allows “everybody to resort a complaint” and “criminalises inter-religious marriages.” Responding to a word by the excessive court, the Gujarat authorities stated that the petitioner “is deciphering the provisions incorrectly.”


(6.) Gujarat have become the 0.33 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-dominated state to skip one of this legislation. In February this year, Uttar Pradesh exceeded the Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Bill, 2021. In March, Madhya Pradesh exceeded the Freedom of Religion Bill, 2020.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER