Uniform civil code bill tabled in India’s Uttarakhand assembly

A bill which proposes uniform marriage, divorce, land, property and inheritance laws for all citizens irrespective of their religion was today tabled in the legislative assembly of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.

If passed, Uttarakhand will be the second Indian state after independence in 1947 to have a uniform civil code (UCC), reports our New Delhi correspondent.

The UCC has been operational in the western state of Goa since the days of Portuguese rule. Goa gained independence from Portugese rule in December, 1961, 14 years after the rest of India came out of British rule on August 15, 1947.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami presented the bill in the House, whose special session was called for a debate on it and the legislation's passage.

The move comes ahead of fresh parliamentary elections across India due in a few months when Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government hopes to ride on a Hindutva plank seeking a third consecutive tenure.

A draft bill of the UCC submitted by a committee of experts last week recommended a ban on polygamy and mandatory registration for live-in relationships.

Exemption for tribal communities from the purview of the proposed law and giving priority to women's equality are also in the draft bill, said official sources who are not authorised to speak on record because it is a matter of the legislative assembly.

Among other key aspects of the report submitted by the five-member expert panel are making halala, iddat, and triple talaq, practices governing marriage and divorce under the Muslim personal law, punishable offences.

Sources said it also recommended making the legal age for marriage, for both men and women, uniform across religions.

It remains to be seen how many of the recommendations by the committee are actually incorporated in the Bill in its final shape.

Several BJP-ruled states in the country, including Gujarat and Assam, have expressed their keenness to follow the Uttarakhand UCC as a model.

Abrogation of Article 370, which had given special status to Jammu and Kashmir, construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and UCC have since long been the core of BJP's Hindutva agenda.

While Article 370 was repealed by the Modi government in 2019, the consecration of the Ram temple took place on January 22 this year.