Ban polygamy, says Uttarakhand UCC panel
CM Dhami plans to introduce a draft bill based on the report in the upcoming assembly session.
A five-member committee looking into the possibility of implementing Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in Uttarakhand submitted its draft report to chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday, setting the ball rolling for the fulfilment of a decades-old ideological goal of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the hill state.
The central theme of the 740-page, four-volume, report is gender equality and tribals have been kept out of its ambit, said a member of the committee, requesting anonymity. The report includes draft provisions for equal rights for women in inheritance in ancestral properties, equal rights to adopt and divorce, and a ban on polygamy regardless of religion, said the committee member quoted above.
The panel has asked for polygamy to be banned and the minimum age of marriage for women to be 18 across religions, the member added. While the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act does proscribe marriage under the age of 18 for women and under the age of 21 for men, some personal laws allow marriage upon the attainment of puberty. This difference, and questions of what takes precedence over the other have led to various cases across high courts, and is now being adjudicated in the Supreme Court since January 2023.
The panel has also suggested a provision for mandatory registration or self-declaration for live-in relationships, and weighed in on Islamic practices such as halala, iddat and some forms of triple talaq, said the member.
Read here: Uttarakhand: UCC committee submits draft report to CM Dhami
Dhami has already said that a draft bill based on the report of the panel, headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, will be brought in the upcoming session of the assembly that commences on Monday.
“Finally this auspicious day has come. After the Ram temple consecration, this promise has also been fulfilled. I also want to thank PM Modi. Finally, work has started on UCC for which the people of this country had been waiting for a long time,” Dhami said.
The five-member committee — also comprising retired Sikkim high court judge Permod Kohli, activist Manu Gaur, retired bureaucrat Shatrughan Singh and vice-chancellor of Doon University Surekha Dangwal — has studied relevant laws regulating personal civil matters in Uttarakhand to prepare the draft. The report suggested changes in existing frameworks on marriage, divorce, property rights, succession/inheritance, adoption, maintenance, custody and guardianship, said a member of the panel.
Dhami said the state government will study the legal aspects of the report and table it in the assembly on Tuesday.
“The first volume has the draft report of the committee, the second volume has the draft code in English, the third volume has the public consultation report of the sub-committee, and the fourth volume has the draft code in Hindi,” said the UCC member quoted above.
“The fourth volume [which is in Hindi] along with a translated version in English will be introduced in the state assembly. In case of conflict or legal intervention in the interpretation of the English version, the Hindi version will be given priority for a resolution,” the member added.
The decades-old demand for UCC is tied to India’s complex system of personal laws that are often tied to community based rules and customs, especially for religious minorities. A UCC, in theory, will implement homogenous rules for marriage, divorce, inheritance, financial compensation and adoption, among others, for all communities but many activists and experts fear that this may obliterate the customs and traditions of particular communities, such as tribals, and become a proxy to target their faiths.
In the Constitution, UCC is a part of the non-justiciable directive principles of state policy. In a 2018 consultation paper, the law commission said UCC was “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage”. Last year, the Law Commission again sought views and suggestions on UCC from the public and recognised religious organisations.
In the run-up to the assembly elections in 2022, the BJP promised to bring UCC, in line with its ideological promise that has been a part of its manifesto for decades.On May 27, 2022, under the chairmanship of justice Desai, a five-member committee was formed. Two sub-committees were also formed for wider public consultation and to prepare the draft code. The committee started public interaction from the country’s first village Mana in Chamoli district on October 1, 2022.
The issue assumed a national profile in June last year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to BJP booth workers and made a strong case for UCC. But almost immediately, several tribal communities in both central India and the Northeast started protesting.
Uttarakhand’s law is also expected to be the blueprint for other states such as Gujarat and Assam that have promised to implement UCC.
The panel report is silent on population control, said the member, adding that it will be a template for other laws.
“For equal rights on adoption, it has been suggested that rules defined in the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act should be followed,” the member said.
“The committee also suggested halala, iddat, and triple talaq be made punishable offences,” the member quoted above added.
In Islam, “halala” is a practice where a divorced woman marries someone else then divorces them in order to make it permissible for her to marry her original husband. Iddat, is a stipulated time that must pass before a Muslim widow or divorcee can marry again.Instant triple talaq is already banned since 2019.
A government official who didn’t wish to be named said that the panel also suggested uniform grounds of divorce, maintenance and alimony irrespective of religion or gender. “Women will have equal rights in inheritance of ancestral properties,” he said.
Other suggestions include mandatory registration of marriage (registration facilities will be made at the village level) and simplification of the guardianship process, said the UCC member.
The UCC draft report will be tabled before the state cabinet, which is meeting on Saturday 4pm; after this, it will be tabled in the state assembly on Tuesday. The session will start on February 5 and conclude on February 8, officials familiar with the matter said.
The Opposition called it an election gimmick to divert the public’s attention from important issues ahead of the general elections.
State Congress chief Karan Mahara said opposition parties were not taken into confidence. “There has been no extensive discussions as is being claimed,” he said.