The Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act
The Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act
The Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act regulates religious conversions within the Indian state of Uttarakhand, applying to all individuals, priests, and organizations there. It prohibits converting someone through force, fraud, misrepresentation, coercion, allurement, or marriage, rendering marriages done solely for conversion void. To convert legally, individuals and priests must give one month's notice to local authorities for a police inquiry. This law matters because it criminalizes unauthorized conversions with heavy prison sentences, makes these offenses non-bailable, and shifts the burden of proving that a conversion was voluntary onto the person who converted and those who facilitated it.
- 1. Short title, extent and commencement
- 2. Definitions
- 3. Prohibition of conversion from one religion to another religion by misrepresentation, force, fraud, undue influence, coercion, allurement or marriage
- 4. Complaint to conversion of religion
- 5. Punishment for contravention of provisions of Section 3
- 6. Marriages done for sole purpose of conversion to be declared null and void
- 7. Court to which petition shall be presented
- 8. Declaration before conversion of religion and prereport about purification Sanskar
- 9. Prosecution to be made with the prior sanction
- 10. Punishment for violation of provisions of Act by an institution or organization
- 11. Prohibition on accepting donation or contribution
- 12. Parties to offence
- 13. Burden of Proof
- 14. Offences to be non bailable
- 15. Power to remove difficulties
- 16. Power to make Rules
PDF: pending for this language.