Read Time: 05 minutes

Gujrat High Court today has refused to rectify its earlier order that stayed implementation of certain Section 5 of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021.

The Division Bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Biren Vaishnav remarked that the court didn’t find any reason to make any changes in the August 19 order.

On August 19, the High Court had passed an interim order which stayed operation of Section 3, 4, 4A to 4C, 5, 6, and 6A of the Act in order to protect parties of interfaith marriages from harassment.

Section 5 of the Act makes it mandatory that religious priests, who converts one person from one religion to another, must take prior permission from the district magistrate. Moreover, the one who got converted also needs to "send an intimation" to the DM in a prescribed form.

Though it was argued by the State Advocate General (AG) that Section 5 of the Act has nothing to do with marriage per se as it is only related to seeking permission of the District Magistrate by a person who wishes to convert his religion, the bench refused to take this argument into consideration.

Therefore, the Court's August 19 order staying rigors of Section need rectification to the extent it mentions Section 5, he stated.

AG further argued that because the court has stayed the operation of Section 5 taking voluntary conversion out of it, therefore, no one will go for conversion at all.

However, it was contended by the petitioners that if Section 5 is excluded from the August 9 order, then entire order will become unworkable.

The court observed that it has only stayed the section 5 in the context of marriage, not the whole section.

Court said that earlier marriages were not falling under section 3 of the Act, but with the amendment, marriages have come under the provision of section 3 making for conversion marriages to necessarily acquire a prior permission under section 5.

The court reiterated it’s earlier order to clarify the stay effect on section 5 stating thatthe order read “the rigors of Section 3, 4, 4A to 4C, 5, 6, and 6A shall not operate merely because marriage is solemnized by a person of one religion with another religion without force or allurement or fraudulent means and such marriages cannot be termed as marriages for the purposes of unlawful conversion."

Therefore, refusing to rectify the August 9 order, the bench denied to rule against the interim stay.

The Law in question

On Apr 1, 2021, the Gujarat Legislative Assembly had passed the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021, which penalises forcible or fraudulent religious conversion through marriage.