UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath tabled a new bill on Monday (29 July) to amend the already passed “Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religious Act, 2021, making it stricter than the previous one.
Similar bills have been passed in different states of India at various times. Currently, 8 Indian states have anti-conversion laws, including Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand. These anti-conversion bills are not new trends. In 1977, the Supreme Court of India upheld the constitutionality of the Anti-Conversion Bill through a challenge (Rev. Stanislaus v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Orissa).
What is the need for sudden amendments?
The statement of objects and reasons states that the current bill is inadequate in preventing and controlling mass conversions in India. The objective of this bill is to protect certain groups of people, including minors, people with disabilities, individuals belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), and women.
This issue has been raised by Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal of the Allahabad High Court. While rejecting the bail application filed by the accused, he stated that "the unlawful activity of converting people of SC/ST castes and economically poor persons into Christianity is being done at a rampant pace throughout the state of Uttar Pradesh.
"Here are some changes that the bill brings in.
01 “Any aggrieved person” is now “any person.”
The wording of Section 4 has been changed in this provision, now “any person” can file an FIR about a violation of the Act.
02. Strict bail conditions
For those accused under Section 3, the Bill proposes to introduce stringent bail conditions that are akin to the bail conditions under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
Under the newly proposed Section 7, an accused cannot be released on bail unless two conditions have been met. First, the public prosecutor (the advocate representing the state government prosecuting the crime) must be allowed to oppose the bail application. Second, the court must be satisfied that there are “reasonable grounds for believing that he is not guilty of such an offence and that no offence can be committed by him while on bail”.
The bill has categorized the offences into two parts. First, if the accused has received money from a “foreign or illegal institution” for the conversion of a different group of people then a fine of at least Rs 10,00,000 with 7-14 years imprisonment.
Second, if the accused causes any person to “fear of his life or property, assaults or uses force, promises or instigates marriage, conspires or induced any minor, woman or person to traffics or otherwise sells them” shall be punished with a minimum 20-year imprisonment which can be extended to life imprisonment.
Why no hearing in Apex Court on Anti-Conversion laws?
A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by CJI on 16 January 2023 allowed transfer petitions that are before respective high courts to the Supreme Court.
Transfer petition has been filed but cases have not been heard since. The official status of the hearing shows that a total of 6 hearings have taken place but all of them have only added cases connected to the issue to the bench.
- Priya Dutt
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