NEW DELHI, Feb. 10 -- If passed, the Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill, 2025, tabled in the Rajasthan Assembly on February 4 2025, will turn the criminal jurisprudence upside down. Hitherto, according to criminal law as practised in India, an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

However, under the Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill," the burden of proof that a religious conversion was not carried out through misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or marriage lies on the person who has "caused" the conversion, that is, the accused. This is actually a reversal of the practice of the presumption of innocence of an accused.

Ironical...