Tag: Anti-Conversion Law

By PTI

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat High Court has asked the state government if it has any objection to quashing of an FIR against the husband, in-laws of a woman and others filed under an amended anti-conversion law when the wife of the main accused has said forcible interfaith marriage allegations levelled in the FIR were not true.

Justice Ilesh J Vora on Wednesday asked the government to file an affidavit if it seeks to oppose the quashing of the FIR in the case, the first under the law, even after the wife of the accused has said a petty domestic dispute in the family, which led her to file a complaint against her husband and in-laws, has been amicably resolved.

The petitioner wife has sought that the FIR be quashed as the angle of forcible conversion by marriage was added to the FIR filed by her against her husband and in-laws by “certain religio-political groups” looking to “communalise” the issue.

She said her complaint before the Gotri police in Vadodara was nothing more than the issue of “petty and trivial domestic matrimonial issue.”

The court granted time to the government to verify the claims related to the settlement of matter between the complainant and the accused, and kept the matter for further hearing on September 20.

The wife of the accused had approached the HC along with her husband, in-laws and the priest who solemnised the marriage, all (numbering 8) seeking quashing of the first FIR lodged in Vadodara under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act 2021, two days later it was amended and notified on June 15.

Apart from various sections of the amended – the accused were also charged under various sections of the IPC and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act after their arrest.

The Act lays down stringent punishment for forcible conversion through marriage.

The wife of the accused, on whose complaint the FIR was lodged, told the HC in her affidavit that the FIR against her husband, in-laws and others was an “incorrect, untrue and exaggerated version of the information given by the informant which arose out of a petty and trivial domestic matrimonial dispute.”

The petitioners, led by the wife of the accused, said since the dispute has been resolved between the parties, they have jointly approached the court for quashing the FIR.

In their plea, the petitioners claimed that the alleged offences are “constitutionally and legally untenable.”

They said most of the accused are under arrest and their bail pleas have also been rejected.

The wife of the accused husband said the petition was filed on the basis of her affidavit that the dispute between them has been resolved.

The woman said she had approached the police with a complaint against her husband over a trivial matrimonial issue that was to be covered under section 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) of the IPC.

“However, at this stage, certain religio-political groups intervened in the matter and communalised the said issue bringing the angle of ‘love jihad.’

Also, on account of the over-zealousness of the police officers involved, facts and offences which were never mentioned or alleged by the informant came to be inserted in the FIR,” said the petition.

“Although the informant (the woman) did not complain/inform if the offences were alleged under IPC, Freedom of Religion Act and Atrocities Act (the woman is a Dalit), the same have been incorporated in the FIR as if the informant complained/ informed about the same,” it stated.

The petition accused the police of showing communal bias in the entire episode.

“The entire action of the police is communally biased,” stated the petition, citing that the father of the wife of the accused husband was not arraigned as accused.

The wife of the accused as well as her mother filed an affidavit stating that no offence as alleged in the FIR has been committed by the accused, it said.

“Therefore, if they are not enlarged on bail, it would result in derailment of the matrimonial relationship between the informant and the accused husband,” she stated in the affidavit.

The petitioner wife and her future husband came to know each other in 2019 and got into a relationship, after which they married as per the Special Marriage Act, 1954, and their family members knew each other and their religion, social status, they stated in the plea before the HC.

They then got married as per Islamic rituals on February 16, 2021, and executed a joint affidavit declaring the facts, and got their marriage registered under the Special Marriage Act.

Subsequently, over some petty matrimonial issue between the husband and the wife, the woman left his house and went to her parental house.

By PTI

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat High Court on Thursday turned down the state government’s plea seeking rectification of its recent order in which it stayed the operation of section 5 of the new anti-conversion law.

Section 5 of the Gujarat Freedom Of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021 mandates that religious priests must take prior permission from the district magistrate for converting any person from one religion to another.

Moreover, the one who got converted also needs to “send an intimation” to the district magistrate in a prescribed form.

“We do not find reason to make any changes in the order passed by us on August 19,” a division bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Biren Vaishnav after hearing the arguments put forth by state Advocate General Kamal Trivedi.

Trivedi, on behalf of the state government, told the bench that section 5 of the Gujarat Freedom Of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021 was there ever since the original law was enacted in 2003 and it has nothing to do with marriage per se.

He tried to convince the judges that a stay on section 5 would actually stay the application of the entire law itself, and no one would approach the authorities for seeking permission before getting converted.

On August 19, the high court stayed sections 3, 4, 4A to 4C, 5, 6 and 6A of the amended Act pending further hearing, saying they “shall not operate merely because a marriage is solemnised by a person of one religion with a person of another religion without force or by allurement or by fraudulent means and such marriages cannot be termed as marriages for the purposes of unlawful conversion”.

Trivedi told the court that section 5 does not use the word “marriage” and it deals with permission from the district magistrate for conversion, either before or after marriage, or even in cases without marriage.

“Since there is a stay on section 5, no one will come for the permission even if it’s a voluntary conversion without marriage. They will say that the high court had stayed the rigors of section 5. It is meant for such propositions where everything is willingly done. This order means the whole law now stands stayed,” said Trivedi, while urging the bench to lift the stay on section 5 by rectifying the previous order.

“The other sections which have been stayed are related to marriage, while section 5 is for legal voluntary conversion. Under that section, if someone goes to the priest, the priest has to take the permission. It deals with lawful conversion. Why a section dealing with lawful conversion should be stayed?” asked Trivedi.

However, the bench told Trivedi that it is his own interpretation that the court has stayed the prior permission part for all sort of conversions.

“If a bachelor wants to get converted, he will require that permission. We have not stayed it. We have stayed the conversion through marriage only. That’s what we have said in the order,” Chief Justice Nath said while rejecting the state government’s plea.

The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021, which penalises forcible or fraudulent religious conversion through marriage, was notified by the BJP-led state government on June 15 this year.

Similar laws have also been enacted by BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Last month, the Gujarat chapter of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind filed a petition in the HC, claiming that some of the amended sections of the state’s new law were unconstitutional.