Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2006 *

Act 15 of 2006

(* Unofficial translation by the Hyderabad Translation Bureau, Hyderabad, India, on June 2, 2007)

This may be enacted through the Madhya Pradesh Assembly in the fifty-seventh year of the Indian Republic as under:

I.  Short title and commencement.

(1) The short title of this Act is “Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2006”.

(2) This will come into force from the date published in Gazette.

II.  Re-enforcement of section 5.

The following section may be enforced in the place of Section 5 of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1968 (No. 27 of 1968). (After this, which will be specified with its original Act.) It means: -

“5. Declaration before conversion of religion and pre-report about purification (sanskar)

(1)    One who desires to convert his religion, he will declare such idea in front of District Magistrate or in front of the Executive Magistrate specially authorized by District Magistrate of related District, that he wishes to change his religion on his own and at his will and pleasure.

(2)    The related religious priest, who directly or indirectly participates in such religious conversion and performs himself necessary purification (sanskar) desires any person for the conversion of his religion from one to another will give the details of the related religion’s purification ceremony in which such conversion takes place along with the date, time, place and the name and address of the person whose religion is going to be changed. This will be given one month before the date of above conversion and such declaration (affidavit) will be given in the prescribed proforma and it will be given by the priest to the concerned District Magistrate in the prescribed manner.

(3)    The District Magistrate, after receiving the information under sub-section (1) and (2), will give the details of information pertaining to the proposed religion conversion to the Police Superintendent, who in turn ensures through local investigation if any objections are there with regard to that proposed religion conversion through Bhaar Sadhak officer of respective police station and he will submit its report to the District Magistrate.

(4)    Whoever fails to follow the provisions mentioned in sub-section (1) will be penalized with a fine amounting up to rupees one thousand.

(5)    Whoever fails to follow the provisions mentioned in sub-section (2) will be imprisoned which may be up to one year or fine up to rupees five thousand or will punished with both.”

III.  Revision of Section 8.

The section 8 of the original Act may be re-serialized in the form of its sub-section (1) and thus after re-serialization of sub-section (1) the following sub-section may be incorporated. It means: -

“(2) All the Rules framed under this Section will be tabled in the State Legislative Assembly.”

Statement of Aims and Reasons

The Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1968 (No. 27 of 1968) is in vogue since 21st Oct. 1968. It is prohibited to convert anybody forcibly, or by inducement or by using any fraudulent method from one religion to another. Even then, there are no such provisions included in the Act through which some help can be received to find out about the conversion of that religion which come under violation of the Act. In the sub-section (1) of section 5 of the existent Act, there is a provision of submitting a report by the religious priest to the District Magistrate who changes a person from one religion to another after purification ceremony of religion conversion is performed. The person who gets himself converted from one religion into another one, it is not required to produce prior-report (Declaration) before any authorized official. The main purpose of the Act turns futile because of such deficiencies because there is no device to find out and prevent violation of the Act of any religion conversion. Therefore it is proposed to revise the section 5 of above said Act as proper to make provision related to previous report of proposed conversion of religion.

(2) The provision is also included in order to submit the rules on the table of the State Legislative Assembly after the revision properly in section 8.

(3) Hence the bill is submitted.

                                                                                    Nagendra Singh

                                                                                    Bhaarsaadhak member

Bhopal

Date: 17th July 2006

Memorandum Pertaining to Re-enforced Law Framing

The empowerment of applying draft and procedure of memorandum pertaining to religion conversion through sub-section (2) of section 5 of part 2 of proposed bill is re-enforced.

This re-enforcement is of a common nature.

                                                                                    Dr. A.K. Payasi

                                                                                    Chief Secretary

                                                                                    M.P. Legislative Assembly