Uttarakhand cabinet approves draft bill to make forced religious conversions a non-bailable offence

The Uttarakhand state cabinet has approved the draft bill called ‘Dharm Swatantrata Adhiniyam’ under which forced and illegal conversions will be a non-bailable offence. The state government is aiming to curb the incidences of religious conversions by means of force, bribes or incentives and duping. Under this bill, a person, if caught with being involved in such practice will have to face a jail term from one year to five years. The minimum jail term will be two years if the victims belong to SC or ST category.

According to reports, if a person wants to convert voluntarily, he/she will have to submit an affidavit with the respective District Magistrate one month prior, in order to clarify that the conversion is voluntary and not forced.

Any conversions, if found not to have followed the above will be invalidated and considered illegal by the government. If a person wants to convert for the purpose of marriage, he/she will also have to submit the same affidavit.

The Trivendra Singh Rawat led state cabinet convened for four hours
on different issues on Monday in the state assembly. Under this bill,
even organised events for religious conversions will be illegal if not
notified to the government one month prior.

The government’s decision is in line with the order of the Uttarakhand High Court in November last year when the bench headed by Justice Rajiv Sharma had suggested that the state government should formulate the Freedom of Religion Act to check the practice of religious conversion for the sole purpose of facilitating a marriage. The HC had asked the state government to legislate a law on the analogy of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 1968 and the Himachal Freedom of religion act
2006.

A bench headed by Justice Rajiv Sharma had said, “It needs to be mentioned that the court has come across a number of cases where inter-religion marriages are being organised.

However, in few instances, the conversion from one religion to another religion is a sham conversion only to facilitate the process of
marriage. In order to curb this tendency, the state government is
expected to legislate the Freedom of Religion Act on the analogy of
Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1968 as well as Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2006, without hurting the religious sentiments of citizens.”

Under the bill, the immediate family members of the concerned person who has been converted can register a case.

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Bills to ban cow slaughter and conversion in coming session of Assembly – Khanduri

By Ravindra Saini in Dehradun

Uttarakhand Chief Minister B.C. Khanduri has assured the saints to bring the cow protection and anti-conversion Bills soon in the state. He said the cow is backbone of Indian economy and she is most revered for Hindus world over. He said cow slaughter would not be allowed at any cost in the state. Shri Khanduri was addressing a large gathering of saints in Haridwar on April15. He said the anti-conversion Bill would be brought soon to ban conversion with allurement or fraudulent means. Prominent saints who were present on the occasion included Swami Satyamitranand Giri, Swami Hansdas, Swami Chidanand Muni, Swami Paramanand Maharaj, Dr Pranav Pandya, etc. Shri Khanduri said the Bills to ban cow slaughter and conversion would be brought in the coming session of the Assembly.

Later talking to Organiser in Dehradun, the Chief Minister spoke about the changes he brought in the state to improve the economic condition and administrative set up. “Since the financial condition of the state is bad the wasteful expenditure needs to be stopped with immediate effect. I have said that any strict action to stop the wasteful expenditure should begin from me. Therefore, I have tried to cut down the unnecessary expenditure on my office. I have reduced my caravan and vehicles from 8 to 2. I have directed the bureaucrats to travel by train where the train connection is available particularly between Delhi and Dehradun and not use the helicopter or road transport which prove very costly. We have brought out a number of changes in the number of vehicles, which were unnecessary,” he said.

When asked about the welfare of the people living in remote areas of the state, Shri Khanduri said he would do everything to improve the pitiable condition of the people living in remote areas. “We will make all the resources available in these areas so that there may not be any inconvenience to those people and people don’t need to come down the places where facilities are available.

He said the efforts are being made to come out of the dept of Rs. 14000/- crore. Several steps have been taken to bring about financial discipline and austerity in the state, resulting in the saving of crores of rupees of the state exchequer during the last one-month.

Commenting on his government’s decision to put a ban on fresh appointments in the state, he said the reports on irregularities in ongoing appointments including issuing of backdated appointment letters made the government freeze all appointments that were in the pipeline. “There is no ban on fresh appointments. We want to first put a system in place where there is no scope of corruption or recommendations,” he added. He said the objective behind this whole exercise is to ensure that we should not commit the same mistakes that were made by the previous government and get caught in scams.

The focus is to put a foolproof system in place right from day one. He said the government has reiterated its resolve to check the spiraling prices of real estate in the state, much to the consternation of builders and property dealers. Shri Khanduri had hinted at it a few days before he took over as the Chief Minister. During the last two years or so, there had been phenomenal rise in real estate prices in Uttarakhand, particularly in Dehradun. The possibility of about 500 industrial units coming up near the BHEL in a few years resulted in manifold increase in the prices. The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) had all along demanded introduction of Section 371 to check the rise in real estate prices.

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