LUCKNOW: Giving legal force to your promise to crack down on forced conversions amid a spiraling dispute over “love jihad,” Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his cabinet approved the UP ordinance on Tuesday Prohibiting Illegal Religious Conversion.
The law makes forced religious conversion punishable in the state with a prison term of between one and ten years and a fine ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 rupees. A marriage by conversion will be declared null and void.
The ordinance will be enacted after the governor’s assent to the pandemic cloud during the assembly’s winter session.
Government spokesman Sidharth Nath Singh He said the ordinance was necessary to maintain law and order in UP and guarantee justice for women, especially from SC / ST communities.
“The law was necessary because of the increasing incidence of forced conversions with the marriage attire. More than 100 cases of this type have come to light. These conversions were carried out with deception and force. This necessitated the enactment of a law . also a higher court order that makes religious conversion for the sake of marriage illegal, “Singh said.
As punishment for surrender forced conversion, the ordinance establishes a prison term of 1 to 5 years and a fine of 15,000 rupees for the accused.
If SC / ST minors or women have been forced to convert, the prison sentence is increased to 3 to 10 years and the fine would be Rs 25,000. In the case of community or mass conversion, the prison sentence is 3 to 10 years and the fine imposed on the organization that designs the law would be 50,000 rupees, according to the ordinance. The organization’s license would also be canceled.
The responsibility of proving that the conversion was not forced, that it was not done by deception, and that it was not prompted for the good of the marriage, rests with the person who converted and the person who was converted.
If someone wanted to voluntarily convert for the sake of marriage, they would have to give the district magistrate in question two months’ notice, Singh said. Failure to do so will result in a fine of at least Rs 10,000 and a jail term of six months to 3 years.
On October 31, while speaking at an election rally in Jaunpur, Yogi Adityanath promised a strict law against “love jihad”, citing an order from the Allahabad High Court where a single court judge said religious conversions just for the sake of marriage were unacceptable. However, a court of two judges from the same court later observed that the sentence was “flawed in law”.
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