Karnataka govt tables anti-conversion bill in Legislative Council

Bengaluru, Spetember 15 : In a bid to stop illegal forced religious conversion, the Karnataka government has tabled the Anti-Conversion Bill in the Karnataka Legislative Council after it was passed in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly.

 

 

The Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, was passed in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly in December. However, it was not tabled in the Legislative Council, as BJP at the time had 32 seats in the Legislative Council – six short of the majority mark. The party now has 41 members in the Upper House.

 

The Karnataka Cabinet had then decided to pass an Ordinance to get a clearance for the Bill. An Ordinance is a temporary law passed by the president or a governor when Parliament or a state Assembly is not in session.

 

 

 

The ordinance was cleared by Karnataka Governor Thawarchand Gehlot on September 17. It was then required to be approved by the Assembly within six months or it will cease to be in effect.

 

The Karnataka anti-conversion bill says that “conversion from one religion to another by misrepresentation, force, fraud, undue influence, coercion, allurement or marriage’’ is prohibited.

 

 

Under the Bill, a person who engages in “forced conversion” will be punished with three to five years imprisonment. Forced conversions of members from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities will lead to a jail term of three to ten years, and a fine of Rs 50,000.

 

In recent years, several other states ruled by the BJP such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have passed laws banning forced conversions. The Bill in Karnataka is more stringent than the ones in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh which have a minimum jail term of one year.

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