The Rohith Vemula Bill has been in the pipeline in Karnataka since April 2025, after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wrote to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah seeking the implementation of the 'Rohith Vemula Act' to ensure that students do not face casteism in the state. (File Photo)The Karnataka government has deferred its decision to table two new laws to regulate social evils in the state – the Karnataka Rohith Vemula (Prevention of Exclusion or Injustice) (Right to Education and Dignity) Bill and the Karnataka Freedom of Choice in Marriage and Prevention and Prohibition of Crimes in the Name of Honour and Tradition (Eva Nammava Eva Nammava) Bill, 2026.A meeting of the Karnataka Cabinet held Thursday decided to defer the tabling of the Bills to obtain certain clarifications from the home department, Law Minister H K Patil said after the meeting. The Bills will be taken up at a “later cabinet meeting” after the clarifications are provided, the law minister added.The Rohit Vemula Bill aims to “prevent exclusion or injustice and to safeguard the right to education and dignity for the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC) and minorities.”The purpose of the Freedom of Choice in Marriage Bill is to prevent honour killings, violation of human rights, bring honour to inter-caste marriages, prevent enforcement of caste-based discrimination on individual choices, and to create a forum called ‘Eva Nammava, Eva Nammava’ to facilitate inter-community marriages.Rahul Gandhi’s letterThe Rohith Vemula Bill has been in the pipeline in Karnataka since April 2025, after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wrote to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah seeking the implementation of the ‘Rohith Vemula Act’ to ensure that students do not face casteism in the state.Rahul Gandhi’s letter came in the wake of a meeting with students and teachers from Dalit, Adivasi, and OBC communities in Parliament, who claimed that caste-based discrimination had continued in colleges and universities.A draft Bill, which has been in circulation since 2025, says victims, their family members, or colleagues can lodge complaints of discrimination on campuses. The draft says that the offence under the proposed Act is cognizable and non-bailable. Institutions violating the Act are also liable for punishment. A provision in the draft Bill says that the “State Government shall not provide any financial aid or grant to such institutions violating provisions of this Act.”Story continues below this adThe draft version of the new law to tackle honor killings as a specific category of crime was proposed by the Congress government in Karnataka in the wake of caste-linked honour killings in the state, including the December 21, 2025, murder near Hubli of a 20-year-old Lingayat woman by her father for marrying a man from another caste.The Karnataka Freedom of Choice in Marriage and Prevention and Prohibition of Crimes in the Name of Honour and Tradition (Eva Nammava Eva Nammava) Bill, 2026, prescribes punishments for discrimination against individuals on the basis of caste in inter-caste marriages of adults and also puts the onus on the state to identify instances where honour and tradition are used to impede inter-caste marriages and to provide shelters for couples facing threats over mixed marriages.“The persistence of caste-based discrimination in Karnataka continues to manifest in brutal forms of violence, including honour killings, particularly against young adults who exercise their constitutional right to choose their life partners through inter-caste marriages,” says the statement of objects and reasons in the draft Bill.The Bill states that offences like murder, assault, and criminal intimidation in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, “do not adequately address the specific social motive of preserving perceived ‘caste honour’ or the wide range of coercive practices employed from performing death rituals (thithi) for living daughters, denying lawful inheritance rights, social ostracism, to insidious attempts at causing harm through poisoning or other covert means.”