UNIFORM CIVIL CODE

UNIFORM CIVIL CODE

Author:- MANPREET KAUR, A STUDENT OF GURU NANAK DEV UNIVERSITY ,REGIONAL CAMPUS GURDASPUR

“The progressive world is monogamous so the uniformity will come in that line”

In India all of the laws are applied the same that means there exists  of law. There are already a lot of uniform laws existing in our country whose biggest example id Indian Constitution, Contract Act, Indian penal code, Code of Civil Procedure etc . but there exists one exception to this uniformitythat is personal laws which varies from religion to religion and this exception give to rise to a controversial topic i.e. UCC(Uniform Civil Code)

Article 44 of the Indian Constitution deals with UCC which states that the State shall endeavour to provide for its citizens a UCC throughout the territory of India. It is such a law for Hindu Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Parsi all of them which talk about bringing and uniform personal law as there are diverse religions in our country which personally deals with their own matters eg 

HINDU PERSONAL LAWS

The Hindu personal laws are derived from ancient religious text and Customs.The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 governs marriage and divorce among Hindus  while the Hindu Succession Act ,1956 deals with inheritance .under the Hindu Succession Act ,1956 Hindu women have equal rights to inheritability  property from their parents and have the same entitlement as Hindu men.

MUSLIM PERSONAL LAW

Muslims in India follow the Muslim personal law which is based on Sharia. The Muslim personal law(Shariat) Application act ,1937 regulates matters related to marriage ,divorce, inheritance and maintenance among Muslims.

The UCC calls for the formulation of one law for India which would be applicable to all religions commodities in matters such as marriage ,divorce, inheritance and adoption. Basically, the ideas to bring formal equal and gender justice among all the citizens of the country as having different personal laws goes against the right to equality enshrined under Article 14 of the Constitution. But you UCC is not enforceable as it is a directive principle of State Policy and not a fundamental right 

BUT WHY UCC IS NOT A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT?

It is so because all the communities especially minorities were not comfortable with losing personal laws in favor of secular laws at the time of formation of the Constitution hence the responsibility was transferred to future generation to implement it .

LANDMARK CASES 

MOHAMMAD AHMAD KHAN VS . SHAH BANO BEGUM

A 62 years old Muslim woman Shah Bano ,filed the petition demanding maintenance from her divorced husband. she was initially granted maintenance by verdict of local court in 1980 and supreme court also ruled that provisions of section 125 CrPC applied to all citizens if respective of their religion.  So this was the landmarka  case which  recommended for the setting up of Uniform Civil Code but later on there was a reversal of Supreme Court judgement as all India Muslim board defended their personal law .

SARLA MUDGAL VS UNION OF INDIA

The court in its judgement held it invalid the practice of converting to another to have a second marriage without resolving the first  marriage. The code directed the Government of India to file an affidavit regarding the steps taken by the government towards securing a Uniform Civil Code under article 44.

Why do minorities oppose Uniform Civil Code ?

The religious bodies of minorities pledges that Uniform Civil Code will interfere with their personal laws and Orders and would curtail their ability to give on their personal matters . The proponents of UCC says that it will bring uniformity and uplift women and minorities where is the opponents of this say that this is the only tool in the hands of majority to impose their dominance over minority.

PRESENT SITUATION IN INDIA

If it talk about the present situation of India in Goa, we do have a Uniform Civil Code which is continuation of Portuguese CPC 1939 .The Supreme court in its judgement on Jose Paulo coutinh(o2019) referred to Goa as a “shining example of UCC.”

 Moreover ,The Uttarakhand government is also going to implement Uniform Civil Code within this year .

The debate on UCC began when BJP in 2014 general election manifesto, promised to bring a UCC  in the country. Again it got attention in 2019 .Now several PIL’S are filed in the supreme court demanding from the union government to take necessary steps in bringing gender-neutral and religion- neutral uniform Grounds of succession and inheritance for all the Indian citizens Law Commission  panel has been set up to receive responses from citizens regarding the implementation of Uniform Civil Code .In 2023 this issue has been against brought up by the Bharatiya Janata Party as a PIL  has been file to Supreme Court in March to pass Uniform Civil Code. The courts said  that the court is a wrong forum to enact UCC and only Parliament can make a law on this matter .

Therefore, UCC if we say in a very simple way is a whole issue of removing such laws from the society which are discriminatory, derogatory and which without any law or logic are clearly wrong.