Haryana passes anti-conversion bill

By: WE Staff | Wednesday, 23 March 2022

To hold back the bill and introduce it to a select committee for more deliberation, the Haryana government passed its controversial anti-conversion bill in the state assembly amid demands from the opposition.

By any fraudulent means or by marriage by making it an offence the Haryana Prevention of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill, 2022, seeks to prohibit religious conversions effected through misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion.

Earlier chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said it is aimed at curbing forced conversions by instilling fear in the minds of the perpetrators. Khattar said that 127 FIRs for religious conversions were registered in four years, a bulk of them from five districts -- Yamunanagar, Panipat, Gurugram, Palwal and Faridabad.

Khattar stated that a person can change religion of his own free will, but not forcibly or using allurement.

To which Hooda said when FIRs have been registered under the existing laws, there was no need for a new law. Khattar, however, said the anti-conversion law was more stringent.

Congress MLA, Kiran Choudhry said such a law will deepen the social divide and it was violative of the Constitution. “Powers under this law will be misused,’’ she said.

Congress MLA Raghuvir Singh Kadian said: “One practices a faith for attainment of divine pleasure but terming it as an allurement is quite ridiculous.”

“Right to freedom religion is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. This Bill is an invasion of the personal domain of an individual,” she said.

The government has added a new provision providing for punishment to anyone converting or attempting to convert minors and women and persons belonging to scheduled castes and tribes In the bill presented in the assembly.