Gurmit Singh, Governor of Uttarakhand. (@LtGenGurmit via Twitter) | Photo credit: File
Lt. Gen. Gurmit Singh (retd.) has returned to the Pushkar Singh Dhami-led government of Uttarakhand the amendment bills relating to the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and the state’s Freedom of Religion and Prohibition of Illegal Conversion Act, citing technical deficiencies.
Government sources confirmed that the governor’s office returned the bills.
“Apart from some grammatical and technical errors, the governor has also highlighted issues with punishment for several offenses in the new legislation,” an official involved in drafting the laws told The Hindu.
He added that since the bills have now returned from the governor’s office, they will need to be reworked to remove the aforementioned errors and resolve other technical glitches.
“The government will then be left with two options, either to approve the amendments by submitting an ordinance, or to have them re-approved in the State Assembly and forwarded to the governor for consideration,” the official added.
Both the religious conversion and UCC laws were among the most ambitious pieces of legislation introduced by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government of Pushkar Singh Dhami and were widely opposed by the Congress and civil rights groups, who called them an attack on the minority community.
The UCC was passed in January 2024 and the government amended the legislation in the monsoon session of the State Assembly in August this year. Among several changes, the government increased the sentence to up to seven years for those who live in a live-in relationship even after marrying someone else. A similar penalty was proposed for those who enter into a relationship by force, coercion or fraud. Section 390-A, new insert, conferred powers on the Registrar General to cancel registrations relating to marriage, divorce, cohabitation or inheritance under section 12.
While the state already had an anti-conversion law passed in 2018, the government amended it in 2022 and again in 2025. This time, prison sentences ranging from three years to life were proposed for those found guilty of “forced conversions”. Previously, the maximum prison term for “forced conversion” was 10 years.
Although the state government claimed that the governor’s office had returned the bills due to minor errors, the Congress termed the move as a tactic to keep the issues in the public mind ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.
“If there were only minor flaws, the governor’s office could unofficially send them back for correction. Sending the message is enough to make sure that either he is completely dissatisfied with the legislation or it is just a tactic by the government to withdraw the bills and pass them again in the House sometime around the elections due in early 2027 because they have already used all their divisional elections to win. nothing new,” said a member All India Congress Committee and Uttarakhand Congress Vice President Suryakant Dhasmana.
Published – 17 Dec 2025 21:30 IST
