Anti-conversion law: Guj HC rejects state govt’s plea to modify order

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 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.