Dhami government’s ambitious bill providing for strict punishment against forced conversion in Uttarakhand has currently been put on hold. Instead of approving the Uttarakhand Religious Freedom (Amendment) Bill 2025, Governor Lieutenant General (Retd) Gurmeet Singh has returned it to the state government for reconsideration. This has dealt a blow to the government’s efforts to provide for punishment up to life imprisonment in cases of conversion.
The Dhami government had recently amended the law to make the punishment more stringent in cases of forced conversion. This amended bill was passed during the Assembly session held in Gairsain in August 2025 and sent to Lok Bhavan for the approval of the Governor. However, according to sources, some technical and legal flaws were found in the draft of the bill, due to which the Governor has asked the government to reconsider before giving its assent.
The Legislative Department received this bill back on Tuesday. According to senior officials, now the government has two options. First, if the government wants the law to be implemented soon, it can implement it through an ordinance. The second option is to re-introduce the amended bill in the next assembly session and get it passed and again send it for the Governor’s approval.
Punishments to become more stringent in 2022
It is worth noting that the law related to religious conversion in Uttarakhand has been made strict several times before. Uttarakhand Religious Freedom Act was implemented in the state in the year 2018. After this, in the year 2022, the Dhami government amended it and made the punishments more stringent. Despite this, the government believed that more strict provisions were necessary to stop organized and serious cases of religious conversion.
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Many important changes were proposed in the new Bill 2025. In this, the punishment period for conversion through deceit, force or inducement was increased from three to ten years, which was earlier two to seven years. Apart from this, the right to file a complaint was given to any person and not limited to blood relatives only. A provision was also made to give the DM the right to confiscate the property of the accused on the lines of the Gangster Act.
What will Dhami government do now?
The strictest provision was for those cases in which conversion was done through pretext of marriage, assault, conspiracy, trafficking of minors, rape or other serious crimes. In such cases, there was a provision for minimum punishment ranging from 20 years to life imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh.
Now after the Governor returns the bill, it will be important to see what amendments the Dhami government makes in it and which way it takes it forward.
