The Uttarakhand Assembly will take up the final draft of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) today, days after it was approved by the state cabinet.
UCC refers to a common set of laws that are applicable to all the citizens of India and is not based on religion in dealing with marriage, divorce, inheritance, and adoption, among other personal matters.
If the bill is passed and the law gets implemented, Uttarakhand will become the first state in the country after Independence to adopt the Uniform Civil Code, with several other BJP-ruled states – including Assam and Madhya Pradesh – expressing interest in bringing in a similar law. Goa has had a common civil code since it was under Portuguese rule.
In the draft bill that Uttarakhand will present in the assembly, the government seeks a complete ban on polygamy, sources said. There is a also a provision for live-in couples to register their relationship.
The sources said the recommendations also say that everyone will get adoption rights. Sources also said that the bill, if cleared, will instate equal inheritance rights for both the son and daughter.
In June last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a big push for a Uniform Civil Code and said the country couldn’t run on two laws, much like it didn’t work to have “different set of rules for different members of a family”.
The draft was prepared earlier this year by a committee set up by Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami. The committee worked with a cross-section of citizens and spoke to more than 2 lakh people and key stakeholders.
A Uniform Civil Code for Uttarakhand was a major election promise by Mr Dhami in the 2022 assembly polls.
The Chief Minister hopes that many states would follow the example of Uttarakhand and use the template provided by the state to implement the UCC.
