UP Assembly passes Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Bill 2021
Feb 24, 2021
Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], February 24 : The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Bill, 2021 was passed by the state Legislative Assembly by voice vote on Wednesday.
Earlier, the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet cleared the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, proposing a maximum punishment of 10 years for 'love jihad'-related offences.
The Islamic organisation Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind had earlier also approached the Supreme Court challenging the Constitutional validity of the Uttar Pradesh Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020.
The organisation filed an intervention application in the already pending pleas challenging the Ordinance passed by the Uttar Pradesh government and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018.
The application said Muslim youth is being "targeted and demonised" using the Uttar Pradesh ordinance on inter-faith marriages and religious conversion.
The ordinance is an attempt to regulate the personal decisions of each human being by encroaching upon an individual's choice to convert to a religion of his/her choice, it added.