Consent forms, notices, prison terms: Maharashtra anti-conversion law | Explained

The story so far: The Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act, 2026, which comes into force on August 28, requires anyone who intends to convert to another religion to give a 60 days’ notice to the District Magistrate. It also sets prison terms of up to seven years for a first violation and up to 10 years for a repeat one, if found guilty of forcing anyone to convert.

The Pune Police have already begun registering cases even before the Act was notified, only to later revoke it calling it a “mistake”. Churches in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region have begun circulating a consent form among worshippers as a precaution.

Several minority communites have raised concern: where does the law’s target end and everyday practice begin?

What does the law say?

The Act received President Droupadi Murmu’s assent earlier this month and took the form of a State law after its official notification on July 30. It targets conversion carried out through coercion, fraud, inducement or allurement, and lays out a procedure for a person who wishes to change religion by choice. A person planning to convert must notify the District Magistrate 60 days in advance.

A conversion must be registered with the authority within 25 days, or it will be considered null and void. If the blood relative of a person who wishes to convert files a complaint about the same being unlawful, the police will have to register a first information report and conduct an inquiry.

A person found to have converted someone through a prohibited means faces a prison term of up to seven years, and a repeat offence draws up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

According to a press note issued by the Archdiocese of Bombay, Maharashtra is the 13th State to pass a law of this kind, after similar statutes in States such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Karnataka.

What are the apprehensions of minorities with respect to the new law?

Take this example from Pune. Even before the law was notified, the police registered a case alleging attempts to induce individuals to convert, including one against a United Kingdom-based Overseas Citizen of India cardholder accusing him of delivering religious speeches without permission — something the law doesn’t even mandate.

The episode raises questions on how the law will be applied at the level of a police station, and over the safeguards that are supposed to precede a case under it.

An anti-conversion law was part of the BJP’s poll promise during State elections. When the law’s draft was cleared by the Maharashtra Cabinet in March, Minister Nitish Rane had said: “We had firmly stated during the Assembly election that once we come to power, we will bring a strong anti-conversion law, also referred to as a law against love jihad, in Maharashtra. Today, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction that such a strong anti-conversion law has been approved by the cabinet.”

Several prayer halls in Mumbai region are asking for a self-declaration form from worshippers stating that they are attending the event by choice and face no pressure, inducement, temptation, lure or threat of any kind. The form is attested with a photograph and an identity proof. Fr. Nigel Barrett, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Bombay, described the form as a step taken out of caution. Given the current law and the manner in which certain groups, such as the Bajrang Dal, enter these spaces, people are taking precautions to safeguard themselves,” he said.

Pointing to records in other States, a press note by the Archdiocese argued that anti-conversion laws in practice targeted religious minorities more often than they have addressed the conduct they were framed to stop.

Bhante Vishal, a Buddhist monk at the Amrapali Buddha Vihar in Thane, said conversion to Buddhism often happens in large scale, especially on October 14 — the day B.R. Ambedkar embraced the religion highlighting untouchability and caste-based discrimination practiced in Hinduism.

How does court intepret freedom of religion?

A recent Bombay High Court order, unconnected to the conversion law, sets out how the court reads the constitutional right at the centre of this debate.

A Division Bench of Justice Anil S. Kilor and Justice Rajnish R. Vyas gave the verdict while hearing a petition against an August 1 order of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, who had refused permission for a Kavad Yatra along a route the petitioner had sought.

The Bench held that the right guaranteed under Article 25 to practise one’s religion is subject to the larger interest of law and public order, and the needs of other sections of the population, where the exercise of that right in a particular manner affects them. The judgment drew a distinction between the right to profess a faith and the right to practise it in a particular manner

Though the order does not deal with religious conversion, it is one of the clearest recent statements from the Bombay High Court on how far Article 25 extends when it meets a claim of public order, and it lands at the same time as a law that turns on the same constitutional provision.

What happens from here?

With the Act now coming into force, its early test will play out around prayer meetings, religious instruction, interfaith relationships and complaints of inducement — the areas its own text is aimed at.

The State government’s stated case for the law is the need to curb conversion obtained through force or fraud. Sections of the Christian and Muslim communities have set out the opposite concern: that a wide reading of terms such as inducement could reach conduct that has nothing to do with coercion, from a personal relationship to attendance at a weekly service.

Two threads from the past month will likely shape how that plays out. One is the Pune case, where police acted before the law’s own start date and then walked it back, a sequence that has already raised questions about the checks meant to precede a case under the Act.

The other is the spread of the self-declaration form, which began before the deadline and is likely to become standard practice at more congregations as a form of documentation against future complaints. Sections of the Buddhist community, going by Bhante Vishal’s comments, face a related but separate question, over how a law aimed at conversion sits against daily religious practice that involves no change of faith at all.

Litigation of the kind that produced the Bombay High Court’s Kavad Yatra order suggests that the courts are likely to settle on questions in the absence of clarity from the State.

Published – August 27, 2026 11:24 am IST