AHMEDABAD, Aug 19: the Gujarat High Court on Thursday stayed the implementation of several sections of the newly-enacted the “Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021, the anti-conversion law related to the interfaith marriages in the state.
A division bench of the court in its interim said the stay was meant to protect the people from “unnecessary harassment.”
The bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Biren Vaishnav said “We are of the opinion that pending further hearing, rigors of section 3,4, 4a to 4c, 5, 6, and 6a shall not operate merely because the marriage is solemnised by a person of one religion with another religion without force, allurement or fraudulent means and such marriages cannot be termed as marriage for the purpose of unlawful conversion.”
Gujarat’s anti-conversion law was amended in 2021 to bring in new sections that penalise forcible or fraudulent religious conversion through marriage and the law was notified by the government on June 15. The law, the government contended, was meant to stop religious conversion through interfaith marriages.
The chief justice said, “This interim order is to protect the parties which solemnised interfaith marriages from unnecessary harassment.” The court acted on a petition filed by the Gujarat chapter of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind challenging the constitutional validity of some of the amended sections.
On Tuesday, advocate general Kamal Trivedi told the court that there was no “ban on interfaith marriages” in the State. He defended the new anti-conversion law, saying marriages cannot be tool for “forceful conversion.”
Trivedi also submitted that there should be no fear about the provisions of the law. “Why this fear? So long as genuine conversion is there, people need not worry. Interfaith marriage per se is not prohibited in this law. It only prohibits forcible conversion by marriage.”
He, however, contended that “The law says no person shall be converted by use of force, allurement, fraudulent means or by marriage for the purpose of conversion.”
In the petition, it has been argued that the amended law goes against basic principles of marriage and right to propagate, profess and practice religion as enshrined in Article 25 of the Constitution.
(Manas Dasgupta)