UP Ordinance on Unlawful Conversions

  • The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government recently passed an ordinance to deal with unlawful religious conversions.
  • The ordinance is in news as is it is seen to be in opposition of various judgements of the Supreme Court (SC). 
PROVISIONS
  • It makes religious conversion for marriage a non-bailable offence.
  • The onus will be on the defendant to prove that conversion was not for marriage.
  • The notice period to the District Magistrate for the religious conversion is two months.
  • In case of conversion done by a woman for the sole purpose of marriage, the marriage would be declared null and void.
  • Violation of the provisions of the law would invite a jail term of not less than one year extendable to five years with a fine of Rs. 15,000.
  • If a minor woman or a woman from the Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) converts, the jail term would be a minimum of three years and could be extended to 10 years with a fine of Rs. 25,000.
  • The ordinance also lays down strict action, including cancellation of registration of social organisations conducting mass conversions, which would invite a jail term of not less than three years and up to 10 years and a fine of Rs. 50,000.
CONTRADICTING SC's JUDGEMENTS
  • The SC in its various judgments, has held that faith, the state and the courts have no jurisdiction over an adult’s absolute right to choose a life partner.
  • Intimacies of marriage lie within a core zone of privacy, which is inviolable and the choice of a life partner, whether by marriage or outside it, is part of an individual's “personhood and identity”.


SOURCE: TH

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