Haryana notifies rules to implement anti-conversion law; burden of proving innocence to be on accused

According to the notified rules, the person seeking to convert and the priest who will officiate the conversion are required to seek prior permission from the administration, specifying reasons. The priest is also required to provide in advance to the District Magistrate details of the guests who are likely to attend the ceremony.

The rules require the accused to pay a “monthly maintenance” and “expenses of the proceedings” in case of litigation to the aggrieved while considering that person’s income and the income of the accused. In cases where a child is born in the marriage, the accused will also have to pay the maintenance to the child till he is a minor “in the best interest of the child”.

“At the time of declaring the marriage as null and void, or at any time subsequent thereto, the Court may order the accused to pay such gross sum or such monthly maintenance or periodical amount (for a term not exceeding the life of the accused),” the rules state.

As per the rules, even if the accused dies during pendency of trial, courts shall be empowered to secure payment of maintenance amount by making a charge on the immovable property of the deceased.

The rules further lay out the procedure of prior declaration of conversion of religion whereby “any person intending to convert his/her religion, shall, prior to such conversion, give a declaration to the District Magistrate of the district in which he/she is residing”.

With the form, the person will have to submit an undertaking that the conversion of religion was willful. The undertaking should also include a number of details, including whether the person belongs to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, and the reason for conversion.

Specific declarations will also have to be given in case of conversion of a minor child.

If District Magistrates receive objections, they can call an inquiry and even refer the matter to police. If the District Magistrate is satisfied that the conversion proposed to take place is as per the rules, he or she will issue a certificate to that effect.

The Haryana Assembly had passed this Bill in March this year amid a furore. Several Congress MLAs raised strong objections to the Bill, specifically its reasoning. They called it “unconstitutional” and termed it the government’s attempt to “divide society on the basis of religion”.

The state BJP government, on the other hand, had justified the need for such a law. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had said: “Law is enacted to create a deterrent for people when they start doing something wrong. Such incidents have started taking place in a few places of Haryana. Until the time these were not happening, or when there were only one or two such incidents, there was no requirement of such a law in this regard. But now several incidents of forced religious conversion by way of coercion and allurements have come to light.”