Name of Student ---------------------------------------------------- Enrolment No.

---------------Stream - BA/BBA LLB______________ Ba LLB Section:

A/B________ Sec B
BENNETT UNIVERSITY, GREATER NOIDA
End Semester Examination, Spring SEMESTER 2019-20
COURSE CODE: LLLB122L COURSE NAME: LAW OF CRIMES I
MAX. MARKS: 50 MARKS
_________________________________________________________________________
1. If the statute contains penal provisions,
a) What are the acts which are offences under the statute and what is the justification
for these acts to be made as offences under the statute? (Word Limit Range -
100-250 Words) (5 Marks)
b) What is the basis for the classification of offences under the statute as
bailable/non-bailable and cognizable/non-cognizable offences? (Word Limit
Range - 100-250 Words) (5 Marks)
c) What is the procedure for arrest, bail and investigation under the statute and how
distinct is it from the CrPC procedure? (Word Limit Range - 100-250 Words) (5
Marks)
d) What is the basis for the above procedure being same/different from CrPC?
(Word Limit Range - 100-250 Words) (5 Marks)
OR
If the statute does not contain any penal provision,
a) What should be the proposed acts which should be offences under the statute and
what is the justification for such acts to be made as offences under the statute?
(Word Limit Range - 100-250 Words) (5 Marks)
b) What should be the classification of offences as bailable/non-bailable and
cognizable/non-cognizable offences based on the proposed acts? (Word Limit
Range - 100-250 Words) (5 Marks)
c) What should be the procedure for arrest, bail and investigation under the statute
and how distinct/similar should it be from the CrPC procedure? (Word Limit
Range - 100-250 Words) (5 Marks)
d) What is the basis for the above procedure being same/different from CrPC as
recommended? (Word Limit Range - 100-250 Words) (5 Marks)

2. What are the (acts covered)/ (proposed acts to be covered under the statute) which are
punishable also under the IPC? (Word Limit Range - 250-500 Words) (10 Marks)
3. Whether there is need for the continuance/repeal/revival of the statute and what are
the reasons for the continuance/repeal/revival? (Word Limit Range - 250- 500
Words) (10 Marks)
4. What are the provisions of the statute which need amendment and the justification for
the amendment? (Word Limit Range - 250-500 Words) (10 Marks)

Page 1 of 7
TOPIC: - UTTARAKHAND FREEDOM OF RELIGION ACT 2018

`1) A
Offences under the statue are: -
Under Section 3 of the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, A person cannot be converted
or attempt to be converted directly or otherwise by any person belonging to one religion to an
another by using means of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement,
fraudulent means or by marriage . 1Section 6 of the Act says that Marriages done with an
objective of religious conversion between individuals from different religions either a man or
a woman covert before or after the marriage is prohibited. 2The following offence were
included in the statue to maintain public order in society and to criminalise “forced
conversions”. These “forcible and fraudulent conversion” and by using other means of
conversion, is a threat to the social harmony and cohesion of the country. The act was
brought to place to curb the number of forced conversions of religion, many due to the
reasons of marriage and also other means and whenever there are reports of forcible
conversions in a place, it leads to protest and violence and can even cause communal riots.
The incidents of conversion have a weakened the social trust of a religious community.
Section 8 says that Individuals seeking to convert their religion should give one-month prior
notice in advance in a prescribed format to the District Magistrate of the district the
individual currently presides in and the religious priests who conducts the religious
conversion should give one-month prior notice in advance in a prescribed format to the
District Magistrate of the district where the ceremony is to be performed. These two offences
were put in place to establish procedures to legally be religiously converted so that there will
not be misuse and violation of the Act and to prevent confusion.
1) B
The offences classified in the act are classified as “non-bailable offence” as under Section 14
of the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act which states that notwithstanding anything
contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, every offence is considered as non-
bailable offences. As per Section 2(a) of CrPC, non-bailable offence includes all those
offences which are not included in bailable offence in the First Schedule. Further, the First
Schedule in its Second part at its end has defined non-bailable offence as the offences which
are punishable with death, imprisonment of life or imprisonment for more than seven years.3
The offences under this Act are cognizable offences since the offences are considered very
serious under this Act and hence, they are cognizable offences. Section 2(c) of the Criminal
Procedure Code,1973 defines cognizable offence as cases in which offences are serious in
nature and the police may arrest individuals without warrant.4 According to Schedule 1 part 2

1
http://www.bareactslive.com/UTR/utr069.htm#0
2
http://www.bareactslive.com/UTR/utr069.htm#0
3
http://devgan.in/crpc/chapter_38.php#s109-120
4
http://www.helplinelaw.com/employment-criminal-and-labour/CCPC/cognizable-offence-criminal-procedure-
codecrpc.html

Page 2 of 7
of the CrPC, imprisonment for more than 7 years or 3 years and upwards but not more than 7
years are cognizable offences.
1) C
The aggrieved person can file a complaint to the District Magistrate of the forceable and
fraudulent conversion of religion and if the District Magistrate finds any reasons of
conversion through Misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or any
fraudulent means or marriage have been used or likely to be used in any conversion within
the local limits of his jurisdiction and he may cause an inquiry to be made in the matter and If
the District Magistrate records a finding that a conversion forced or fraudulent means has
taken place or is done without requisite notice , the court will refer the case along with all
material adduced during the course of the enquiry to the Police Station in which the person is
a resident or where the conversion is intended . After investigating the matter, it appears that
an offence under, the Investigating Officer shall place all relevant material before the
authority empowered under to grant prosecution sanction and such sanction shall be granted
or refused within a period of seven days, giving reasons in writing. Since they are non-
bailable offences, the bail is at the discretion of the judge and the burden of proof is upon the
accused person that such conversion is voluntary and genuine under Section 13 of the
Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act.5

This is different from CrPc as when the knowledge of a cognizable offence, the police officer
will start to investigate the case before the orders of the magistrate under Section 156 (1) of
the CrPC. In case of failure of a police officer to investigate a cognizable offence, a criminal
complaint can be filed before a Magistrate under Section 190 of CrPC., for taking cognizance
of such offence, and on such complaint, the Magistrate himself can take cognizance of the
case and do the enquiry, or in the alternative under Section 156 (3) of the CrPC., order Police
to register an F.I.R and will arrest the person and bail can be done before sessions court or the
magistrate court where it will be on the discretion of the court, if bail is accepted the accused
person is released of the offence or not , then the police investigate the offence. 6Where they
look for evidence, interrogate the accused and the police officer on his judgement may or
may not arrest the person. Then a charge sheet is filed before magistrate and there are
arguments before the Court on framing of charges and if charges are framed, the trial of the
accused person begins where cross examination and arguments are presented before the
court7

1) D
The offences like A person cannot be converted or attempt to be converted directly or
otherwise by any person belonging to one religion to an another by using means of
misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement, fraudulent means or by
marriage where imprisonment ranges from 1-5 years and will be liable with fine, if the person
converted is a minor , woman or belongs to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled tribe,
imprisonment will range from 2-7 years, is tried by the District Magistrate under this act and

5
http://www.bareactslive.com/UTR/utr069.htm#0
6
https://www.mondaq.com/pdf/clients/318472.pdf
7
https://www.mondaq.com/pdf/clients/318472.pdf

Page 3 of 7
any person except by or with the previous sanction of the District Magistrate or such other
authority not below the rank of a Sub-Divisional Magistrate.

But this is not the case in CrPc under Schedule 1 part 2, as imprisonment for 3 Years, and
upwards but not more than is tried by the Judicial Magistrate of the First class and
imprisonment for less than 3 Years or with Fine will be tried by any Magistrate. Under the
Act offences like under Section 8, the act says that Individuals seeking to convert their
religion should give one-month prior notice in advance in a prescribed format to the District
Magistrate of the district the individual currently presides in or else the conversion will be
declared as invalid and imprisonment may range from 6 months to 1 year with fine and the
religious priests who conducts the religious conversion should give one-month prior notice in
advance in a prescribed format to the District Magistrate of the district where the ceremony is
to be performed and if not followed, the priest will be imprisoned from 6 months to 1 year.
All these punishments to offences refer to as Bailable and Non-Cognizable offences under the
CrPC Schedule 1 Part 2 but these offences are treated as Non-bailable and Cognizable
offences under the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act.

2)
The offence of where a person cannot be converted or attempt to be converted directly or
otherwise by any person belonging to one religion to an another by using means of
misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement, fraudulent means or by
marriage (Section 3) and Marriages done with an objective of religious conversion between
individuals from different religions either a man or a woman covert before or after the
marriage is prohibited, can be understood from Section 153-A, 295-A of IPC and 298 OF IPC
deals with deliberate acts having malicious intention to hurt the religious sentiments of
others. In section 295-A of the IPC, it says that an individual with malicious intention who
hurts the religious sentiments by words , either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible
representations or otherwise, insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs a
particular group, will be punished with imprisonment which may extend to 3 years or with
fine, or with both. 8The forced conversion of an individual can be categorised under “visible
representation” or even an insult to other religious communities. This can be seen similarly in
Section 153-A of the IPC where it says that promoting hostile feeling between different
religious communities or through acts which are detrimental to maintenance of social
harmony either by words, signs, visible interpretations , organizing any exercise, movement,
drill or other similar activity are prohibited and prescribes the punishment9. The very act of
forcibly converting of an individual by means of fraud, coercion, etc for marriage and other
means, violates the freedom of religion and conscience of a person under Article 25 of the
constitution and violates the very fact of secularism which is enshrined in the constitution of
India . The same can be seen in Section 298 of IPC where it says that a person with a
malicious intention of hurting the religious feelings who utters any word or makes any sound
or makes any gesture in the sight of that person or places, any object in the sight of that
person, will be punished with imprisonment which may extend to a year , fines or even both.
10
The Act makes forced conversion a cognisable offence under sections 295 A and 298 of the
8
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1803184/
9
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/345634/
10
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1774593/

Page 4 of 7
Indian Penal Code, which imprisonment is up to 3 years and fine. The penalty is harsher if
the offence committed against a minor, a woman or an SC or ST person.

3.
The Act should be kept in place but the way it is being implemented should be changed. The
Act only wants to condemn and punish offences relating to forceable and fraudulent means of
converting a person’s religion to another. The Act explicitly says that conversion of religion
through propagation is seen as forceable conversion and is punished. This makes no sense as
under the freedom of religion under Article 25 of the Constitution is the freedom to profess,
practise, propagate religion, subject to public order, morality and includes freedom of
conscience.11 Freedom to Propagate means spreading, transmitting, or publicizing the religion
of a person to the enlightenment of other. In the case law of Rev Stanislaus vs Madhya
Pradesh, the supreme court was of that every person has a fundamental right under our
Constitution to entertain any religious beliefs and exhibiting an individual’s belief through
overt acts is allowed by his religion and propagate his religious views for the enlightenment
of others. Hence the Supreme Court held that freedom of religion in the constitution is not
guaranteed for only one religion but for all and there is a fundamental right to propagation but
no fundamental right to convert any person to one’s own religion.12
The Supreme Court decision failed in distinguishing conversion by force and conversion by
persuasion. Even advertisements use of the art of persuasion to convince people to buy their
products. The right to freedom of choosing one’s own religion has no meaning if the very
means of choice of religion were removed. Choice between religions is unimaginable in the
absence of an intellectually persuasive propagation of religion. Thus, the Supreme Court’s
ruling is unjustifiable. This decision of the court seems wrong as Under Article-25 freedom to
propagate religion means to spread, transmit or carry forward or publicize one's religious
view for the edification of others. Propagation can be understood as a process of persuasion,
without any element of force or coercion. This right to propagate is not a right to apply
coercive method to convert other to one's religion. If a person’s right to propagate his religion
does not include a right to freedom of speech aimed at seeking conversions, wouldn’t that
right be misleading? As propagating religion is not spreading the religion of a person widely
to the public, but it is to produce to produce intellectual and moral conviction leading the
adoption of that religion. When there is successful propagation of religion, it would result in
conversion of religion. Therefore, when an individual converts to another religion, based on
the speech where the objective is aiming at producing such conversion, the individual is in
fact using his general right to freedom of conscience.13
The acts confuse a person’s right and liberty to exercise free conscience for another person’s
right to propagate religion, which leads to horrible results. In conclusion, the act needs some
serous re-writing of definitions and should include amendments to include the things
discussed above as the purpose of the acts seems legitimate but the way it is expressing seems
offensive and inappropriate.

11
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/631708/
12
https://www.minormatters.org/storage/app/uploads/public/5b5/5a5/7bc/5b55a57bcc5bd294686352.pdf
13
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/conversion-and-freedom-of-religion/article6716638.ece

Page 5 of 7
4.
Allurement in Section 2 (a) of the Act defines as:- an offer of any temptation in the forms of
gifts gratification or material benefits, including either in cash or kind or employment, free
education in reputed school run by any religious body, easy money, better lifestyle, divine
pleasure or otherwise. 14For example, Charitable acts are fundamental to many religious
traditions (mainly Christianity, Islam) and such interpretation of allurement in the act restricts
the freedom of its followers to carry out their overt acts of religious beliefs. The main point is
that temptation of any kind cannot be said to have a malicious intention to forcibly convert a
person belonging to one religion to another.
The meaning of “Fraudulent” in 2 (d) of the Act includes misrepresentation of any kind or
any other fraudulent contrivance15. This definition of fraudulent in the Act lacks clarity as For
Example, if a person was said that they would be closer to god when converted and if the
converted didn’t feel as so, would this come across as “misrepresentation”
The definition of Force in Section 2 (c) includes a show of force or a threat of injury of any
kind to the person converted or sought to be converted or to any other person or property
including a threat of divine displeasure or social ex-communication . 16It is vague on how this
definition will operate in practice. For example, if a religion teaches that non-adherent risk
divine displeasure (as with Christianity, Islam), the very act of even imposing this may be
considered as an act of force since it includes barriers on freedom to change religion. This is
essentially problematic when a person who is a potential converts and the person seeking to
bring about their conversion, unable to inform the person who is a potential convert, what
their religion teaches about not adhering and thus limiting the amount of information that can
be made available which can influence whether a person wants to be converted to another
religion.
According to Section 3 of the Act, it prohibits conversion from one religion to another
religion by misrepresentation, force, fraud, undue influence, coercion, allurement or marriage
but if any person comes back to his ancestral religion, it shall not be deemed conversion
under this Act. There is a problem with Ancestral religion as it is different from a practising
religion. For example let’s take a scenario where a person whose ancestor was Hindu but
practices Islam because he chose to be a Muslim under the right to freedom of religion under
Article 25 of the Constitution, but he is forced by illegal means of force , coercion ,
misinterpretation , etc it won’t be deemed as an offence because the act states that it doesn’t
condemn a person “coming back” to his ancestral roots or if the person was born a Hindu but
chose to practise Islam on his own choice and is re-converted to a Hindu by forceable means,
it won’t be seen as an offence since the act doesn’t even mention that re-converting back to
native religion or even ancestral religion, by forceable and fraudulent means will constitute as
an offence. The Act should be include re-conversion by means of fraud , coercion , etc to be
prohibited if a person choses to practise a religion of their own choice instead of the religion
they were born with( native religion) or that of their Ancestors.

14
http://www.bareactslive.com/UTR/utr069.htm#0
15
http://www.bareactslive.com/UTR/utr069.htm#0
16
http://www.bareactslive.com/UTR/utr069.htm#0

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The definition of the words mentioned below remain vague and fails to clarify on what makes
a conversion of religion, improper. So hence they should be amended.

Page 7 of 7