The Bill to curb honour killings was passed during the previous Ashok Gehlot government’s 2018–23 tenure which Governor Bagade has returned. (File Photo)
Rajasthan Governor Haribhau Bagade has returned the Bill to curb honour killings which was passed during the previous Ashok Gehlot government’s 2018–23 tenure.
On the first day of the budget session in the Rajasthan Assembly on Wednesday, the House was informed of the Governor’s message returning The Rajasthan Prohibition of Interference with the Freedom of Matrimonial Alliances in the Name of Honour and Tradition Bill, 2019.
In its grounds, the state government said that the Bill deals with certain sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), both of which have now been repealed. Additionally, the government said that Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, is sufficient to deal with honour killing; as per BNS Section 103, murder is punishable by death or imprisonment for life, as well as a fine.
Back then, the Gehlot government had noted that “there has been a spurt in illegal intimidation by self-appointed bodies for bringing pressure against Sagotra marriages and inter-caste, inter-community and inter-religious marriages between two consenting adults in the name of vindicating the honour of family, caste or community,” also holding accountable, among others, those who indulge in ostracisation of such a couple or their family.
The Bill had carried various categories of punishment, with the maximum being for death: for causing death of such a couple, or either of them, the convict may be punished “with death, imprisonment for life, which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of that person’s natural life,” and with a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh.
Last year, similar grounds had been cited in the case of The Rajasthan Protection from Lynching Bill, 2019, with the government saying that BNS Sections 117 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) and 189 (unlawful assembly) are sufficient to deal with such an act.
The Bill had made lynching a cognisable, non-bailable and non-compoundable offence punishable with life imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh. It had defined lynching as “any act or series of acts of violence or aiding, abetting or attempting an act of violence, whether spontaneous or planned, by a mob on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, language, dietary practices, sexual orientation, political affiliation, ethnicity”.
The offence was to be investigated by a police officer of the rank of inspector and above, with the Bill being brought in the backdrop of a number of lynchings in the preceding years, beginning with that of dairy farmer Pehlu Khan in April 2017.
So far, Governor Bagade has returned, among others, the three farm laws which were passed by the Gehlot government, as well as the Rajasthan Freedom of Religion Bill, 2008, which was passed during Vasundhara Raje’s tenure. In its stead, the Bhajan Lal Sharma government had last year passed The Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill, 2025, to prohibit what it said were “unlawful conversions.”
Curated by James Chen
