News jungal desk: A uniform civil code means all the sections of the society irrespective of their religion shall be treated equally according to national civil code, which shall be applicable to all uniformly. it covers main areas like marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption, and succession of property.it is based on the premise that there is no connection between law and religion in the modern civilization.
Article 44:
uniform civil code is a part of Directive principles of state policy which states that states shall do effort to provide for its citizen a uniform civil code throughout the territory of india.
Goa is the only state which has formulated UCC. it retained it’s common family law which known as Goa civil code after liberated from portuguese rule in 1961.
Important cases regarding UCC:
Shah bano case (1985):
the supreme court upheld the right of a muslim women to claim maintenance from her husband under section 125 of cpc(criminal procedure code) even after the expiry of iddat period.
Sarla mudgal case (1995):
the supreme court held that a hindu husband can not convert to islam and marry another women without dissolving his first marriage.
Arguments in favour:
1)it will integrate india, india is a country with many religions, customs and practicesit will integrate india more than ever it has been since independence.it will bring every indian despite of his cast, religion or tribe under one national civil code.
2)it will reduce vote bank politics that most political parties are indulge in during every election.
3)personal laws are like alternative judicial system that still operate on thousands of years old values . a UCC would change that by integrating whole nation.
4)sign of modern progressive nation, it is a sign that nation has moved away from cast and religious politics. while our economic growth has been significant but our social growth has lagged behind. A UCC will help society move forward and make india truely developed nation.
5)it will improve codition of indian women,religious personal laws are misogynistic in nature and by allowing all these religious laws to continue to govern the family life, we are condemning all indian women to subjugation and mistreatment.A UCC will give more rights to our women.
6)it promotes real secularism,a UCC doesn’t mean that it will limit the freedom of people to follow their religion, it just means that every citizen will be treated the same and everyone has to follow same laws regardless of any religion.
7)change has been the law of nature,a minority of people should not be allowed to pick and choose the laws they want to be administered under.these religious laws were formulated in a specific temporal context and should not stand still in a changed time and context.
arguments against:
1)misinformation about UCC,the content of UCC has not been spelt out clearly so leading minorities believe that this is a way to impose majority views on them.
2)lack of political will due to complex and sensitive nature of the UCC.
3)different religious communities have different personal laws which politicize the UCC debate.
way forward:
india has a unique blend of different religious laws of hindus , muslims, christians and parsis.there exists no uniform family related law in a single statute book for all indianswhich is accepted to all religious communities who coexist in india.however majority of them believe that UCC is definitely desirable and would go a long way strengthening and consolidating india as nation.
instead of using UCC as an emotive issue to gain political advantage, political and intellectual leaders should try to evolve a consensus. the only purpose is to treat every human being with dignity which personal laws have failed so far to do so.
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