Guj Governor returns amended religious conversion bill

Ahemadabad (Gujarat): Setting up a possible showdown with the BJP government in Gujarat, Governor Nawal Kishore Sharma today returned a controversial amendment passed by the state assembly to a law to check religious conversion, saying the proposed measure violated the right to religious freedom.

The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (amendment) Bill, 2006 sought to replace the definition of convert by a new one under which a person renouncing one denomination and adopting another denomination of the same religion was to be excluded from the meaning of ‘convert’.

Returning ‘The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (amendment) Bill, 2006’, the Governor said "what made it more objectionable were the three explanations stipulating that the "Jains" and "Buddhists" shall be construed as denominations of Hindu religion, Shia and Sunni of Muslim religion and Catholic and Protestant of Christian religion".

The provisions of amendment bill are violative to the Article 25 of the Constitution which gurantees to all citizens to freely profess, practice and propagate a religion, Sharma said, according to an official release from the Governor’s office.

The bill should be reconsidered for suitable amendments so as to bring its contents in conformity with the Constitution, he said.

The Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act 2003 was enacted with a view to preventing conversions of persons from one religion to another by use of force or by allurement or by fraudulent means.

In 2006, the state government had brought the bill to amend the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act 2003.

Source: http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=492330

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