Introduction
Uniform civil law(UCC) resonates with the idea of bringing uniformity each across the country in terms of one nation one rule. UCC really is a desirable and progressive thing for getting a temporal country. When the Constitution makers made the relinquishment of a UCC as one of the directive principles, opinion was divided on whether it should be implemented or not as the Advocates of UCC have stated that it will remove all and every kind of discrimination and a religion based demarcation of personal laws but the critics have stated that it will sure shot interfere with the personal laws of the minority groups which will take away their rights of having their own laws that deal with the matters relating to succession, inheritance, marriage etc. By the time UCC is welcomed by all with open arms it’s implementation is a work in progress. But the recent development has something that was surely surprising for all.
The history
The debate for the UCC goes back to the social period of India where the original and social
Indian testaments were coloured by the western testaments. Laws in India were originally governed by the conception of dharma, also religious beliefs governed the legal justice. The time came when the discrimination on the basis of religion came so deeply routed that now it was the want of each and every religious group that they be governed by different laws each together on the grounds that different persuasions had different testaments that they believe in. It was for this case that Hindu and Muslim customary laws came to existence. The British stressed opposition from community leaders and abstain from farther snooping within this domestic sphere. Also, Goa got separated from the Indian state due to the social rule in the quondam Portuguese Goa and Daman, retained a common family law known as the Goa civil law and therefore was the only state in India with a invariant civil law until 7 February 2024. Still, the Goa civil law isn’t invariant as it has special vittles for different communities, for illustration, it allows bigamy to Hindu men if the woman doesn’t deliver a child before the age of 25 or a manly child before the age of 30. In the post colonial period, when the Constitution was being drafted, our forefathers fathers proposed for a UCC and eventually included it as Composition 44 as a part of Directive Principles of State Policy substantially due to opposition from religious monotheists and a lack of mindfulness among the millions during the time. The major developments were the preface of Hindu Code bill, and the Hindu succession act, 1956 that legalised divorce, opposed polygamy and gave heritage rights to the daughters.
However, a contrary provision existed in the Constitution itself that Article 37 said about the non-enforceability of Directive Principles of State Policy by any Court Le. Is to say that however the constitution believes in the Uniform Civil Code but it does not makes it implementation a complete mandate.
The UCC griped as an important content of interest in Indian politics after Shah Bano Case in 1985. Where, a 73 year old woman was disassociated by her husband by the triple talaq and was denied her right of maintenance where the trial and high courts ruled in her favour but her husband approached the Supreme Court with a contrary contention. The Supreme Court ruled in her favour in 1985 under the “ conservation of women, children and parents “ provision( Section 125) of the All India Criminal Code, which applied to all citizens irrespective of religion. The debate surfaced when the question arose of making certain laws applicable to people of all persuasions without compromising on their abecedarian rights of right to exercise and propagate their religion.
Again, In October 2015, the Supreme Court of India asserted the need for a uniform civil code and said: “This cannot be accepted, otherwise every religion will say that they individually have right to decide issues as a matter of their personal laws. We don’t agree with this at all. It has to be done through a decree of a court”. But the Law Commission of India stated on August 31, 2018, that a uniform civil code is “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage”
On 17 July 2023, Justice Krishna Murari, who recently concluded his tenure in the Supreme Court of India, said that “uniformity in anyway is beneficial”, but before the implementation of the UCC, extensive discussions and consultations, with the general public should take place. UCC had been included in BJP’s manifesto for the 1998 and 2019 elections, and was even proposed for introduction in the Parliament for the first time in November 2019 by Narayan Lal Panchariya. The bill was brought for a second time by Kirodi Lal Meena in March 2020, but was not introduced again.
The present scenario
Now, is the time when on 7th February, 2024 the Uttrakhand Legislative Assembly passed the Uniform Civil Code Bill, 2024. This particular bill has tried to brought about uniformity in personal laws, governing things such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance, across communities in the state (excluding tribals). According to a fleetly released press note from a group of Uttarakhandi women as soon as the contents of the Bill came public, the women of Uttarakhand had protested and rejected the draft in toto. According to the note which seems to have been disregarded, the Bill was erected along the patriarchal Hindu law template and retained several discriminative aspects that would deny women an equal agency. The leaders of the Muslim community have also protested over the UCC catching Muslim particular laws. The new law lacks clarity for both groups and that may beget heavy tailbacks when it’s enforced. It does not, for illustration, distinguish between ancestral or tone- acquired property. It seems to promote protrusive moral policing and may affect in discriminative importunity of grown-ups in a relationship that has been considered independent and consensual. Some of the rules may come clearer when gazetted but the mandatory enrolment of live- in connections is full of explosive landmines.
Conclusion
The debate over a UCC reflects India’s broader struggle to balance religious pluralism and secular governance. Any future legislation would need to carefully navigate these complexities to be widely accepted. Ultimately, the adoption of a UCC, if realized, would represent a major shift in India’s social fabric with far-reaching implications. However, the path forward remains unclear given the political sensitivities and constitutional challenges involved.
