The Gujarat High Court on Thursday turned down the State Government's plea seeking rectification of its recent order in which it stayed the operation of section 5 of the new anti-conversion law.
Section 5 of the Gujarat Freedom Of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021 mandates that religious priests must take prior permission from the district magistrate for converting any person from one religion to another.
Moreover, the one who got converted also needs to "send an intimation" to the district magistrate in a prescribed form.
"We do not find reason to make any changes in the order passed by us on August 19," a division bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Biren Vaishnav after hearing the arguments put forth by state Advocate General Kamal Trivedi. Trivedi, on behalf of the State Government, told the bench that section 5 of the Gujarat Freedom Of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021 was there ever since the original law was enacted in 2003 and it has nothing to do with marriage per se. He tried to convince the judges that a stay on section 5 would actually stay the application of the entire law itself, and no one would approach the authorities for seeking permission before getting converted.
On August 19, the high court stayed sections 3, 4, 4A to 4C, 5, 6 and 6A of the amended Act pending further hearing, saying they "shall not operate merely because a marriage is solemnised by a person of one religion with a person of another religion without force or by allurement or by fraudulent means and such marriages cannot be termed as marriages for the purposes of unlawful conversion".
Trivedi told the court that section 5 does not use the word "marriage" and it deals with permission from the district magistrate for conversion, either before or after marriage, or even in cases without marriage.