Uniform Civil Code A need of the Hour

India is a heterogenous state which is home to various religion and cultural diversity. Due to
presence of these diversities their prevails many personal laws governing civil rights i.e.
property laws, divorce, maintenance, succession etc. of people following different religion.
Diversity in personal matters make way to sentimental tension between different
communities which leads to the widening the gap between these religions. For example, in
the British time they used the policy of ‘divide and rule’ which ought to enlarge the gap
between Hindu and Muslim. This is not the only instance where difference in personal laws
have led to communal disharmony. Keeping these instances in notice the member of The
Drafting Committee of Constitution in 1950 came up with an idea of a civil code which will
be applied uniformly throughout the nation, which came to be known as Uniform Civil Code.
It will be a codified law governing the civil rights of every religion under the same roof. The
purpose of UCC is to promote fraternity, unity and national integrity. It assumes that there is
no nexus between secularism and the freedom of religion enumerated in the Constitution of
India. The preamble of the Constitution states that India is a ‘secular’ state which means there
is no state religion. In lieu of which the Drafting Committee came up with inclusion of
Article 44 which states that ‘The state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform
civil code throughout the territory of India’
However there have been resistance mounted on religious grounds in implementation of
UCC. There are several communities who are in oppose of this idea namely Naga
Community, Muslim Community and many more. They think in the name of UCC they will
be subjected to Hindu laws and their personal laws will be infringed which will lead to
inseparable damage to the whole community. There is a sense of fear in the mind of Muslim
people that the principals of holy Quran would be in danger and so thus their long prevailing
family law. In Muslim Community bigamy is not considered to be punishable as it is
governed by the Sharia law. Moreover, there have been cases of Hindu men converting to
Muslim Religion only in order to profess bigamy. So, it is a thorough argument that Article
44 should not be implemented because it is opposed to Sharia. At this point it is important to
quote former CJI Justice Chagla’s comment on UCC- “Article 44 is a mandatory provision
binding the government and it is incumbent upon it is to give effect to this provision... The
Constitution was enacted for the whole country, it is binding for the whole country, and every
section and community must accept it provisions and its Directives”
Another resistance that came in between the path of implementing UCC is that it would be
violative of Article 25 and 26 i.e.Right to freedom of religion. It must be noted that Article 25
is a fundamental right and it is enforceable in the court of law whereas Article 44 is DPSP
which is just the directions given to state for and moreover it is also not enforceable in the
court of law. Then how can they be considered as colliding?
Since Indian Constitution stands for gender rationality, but even after half a century we are
not able to achieve the ideals of UCC which was ought to have achieved in 1950 itself.
The social footing of women suffers in the non-codification of the personal laws as we have
seen in the cases of inheritance, maintenance, divorce etc. different religion is governed by
their respective personal laws. This turn out to be a suffering to women as Hindu personal
law allows for maintenance after the marriage is dissolved where as in Muslim personal laws
the situation is totally opposite. Though there is Article 15 sub clause (3) which provide state
with power to make special provisions with respect to women and children, it must also be
considered that these personal laws should be read in accordance with the human rights.
Principal of fairness and equality is the essence of both human rights and UCC. So UCC can
be an absolute solution to this discrimination among genders that has gotten broader due to
our personal laws.
The Apex Court for the first time discussed about the right of maintenance of Muslim women
in Mohammed Ahmed Khan vs. Shah Bano Begum1 in which a 62year old women who was
also a mother of 5 children, filled a criminal suit for maintenance, which in fact she won.
However due to the orthodoxy prevailing due to the Islamic law the parliament was forced to
pass Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, in lieu of which Muslim
women’s were denied Maintenance under Section 125 Cr.P.C. The didn’t do anything with
Hindu women right to maintenance as they are governed by their personal law which gives
them the given right to maintenance. These sorts of inequalities can be managed if there
prevail a UCC for all the religions.
These problems aren’t only limited to Muslim religion but also to Hindu religion as there
have been cases were a Hindu man having an existing lawful marriage solemnized under
Hindu law, convert to Muslim religion only to get married the second time what too without
divorcing the first wife. This problem was solved by the Apex Court in Sarla Mudgal Vs.
Union of India2 in which it was held that “Hindu marriage solemnized under Hindu law
would not by itself dissolve if a person converts to Muslim religion in order to get married
the second time but the same will be unlawful and will amounts to bigamy under Sec. 494 of
Indian Penal Code. In this case also Supreme Court demanded the implementation of UCC as
said by Justice Kuldip Singh while giving the judgment and administered the GOI to perform
the directives of Article 44 and held that, “Successive governments have been wholly remiss
in their duty of implementing the Constitutional mandate under Article 44, Therefore the
Supreme Court requested the Government of India, through the Prime Minister of the country
to have a fresh look at Article 44 of the Constitution of India and endeavour to secure for its
citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India”
Similarly, in the cases of Cristian Community, a man can be separated from his wife on the
grounds of adultery as given under Sec. 10 of the Indian Divorce Act 1869, but for women,
they needed to establish some other grounds like desertion and cruelty under the Indian
Divorce Act 1869. In Swapna Ghosh v. Sadananda Ghosh 3 Apex Court expresses that Sec.10
and Sec. 17 of the Indian Divorce Act 1869 ought to be declare outlawed by the constitution
but the main footing was taken in the year 1995 when the Kerala High Court in Ammini E.J.
v. Union of India,4 and the Bombay High Court in Pragati Verghese v. Cyrill George
Verghese,5took down the Sec.10 as violative of gender equality.
In another landmark case, Ahmadabad Women’s Action Group (AWAG) v. Union of India,6 a
Public Interest Litigation was filled on gender disparity but this time it was not of any
specific religion but of provisions of Muslim, Hindu and Christians civil laws. The court was
severely criticized for its decision as it said “the matter of removal of gender discrimination
in personal laws “involves issues of State polices with which the court will not ordinarily
have any concern.”7 Similarly in Lily Thomas etc vs. Union of India and Ors8 the court said
that “though the desirability of UCC cannot be doubted but it can only be achieved if the

1
AIR 1985 SCR 844
2
(1995) 3 SCC 635
3
AIR 1989 Cal. 1
4
AIR 1995 Ker 252
5
AIR 1997 Bom 349
6
AIR 1997 SC 3614
7
Ibid, at 3617
8
AIR 2000 SC 1650, at 668
elites of all the communities rise above gaining personal mileage and awaken the mass to
accept the change.”9
Since UCC is concerned with civil rights i.e. divorce, maintenance, marriage etc of different
communities clubbed together as a one whole bunch of rights, one step that the Court took
towards achieving it was by adding another ground for divorce i.e. ‘irretrievable breakdown
of marriage’ in Hindu Marriage Act which was attain through a case named Naveen Kohli v.
Neelu Kohli,10 in which it allowed the dissolution of a 30 year old marriage. In lieu of this
Law Commission of India and the Apex Court recommended to add this as a separate ground
for divorce. Also, if the legislature does not follow these guidelines, since the matter is in
Concurrent List of 7th Schedule, the state legislature may take the lead by exercising their
powers.
Also, in Seema v. Ashwani Kumar,11 the State took another step towards attaining the goal of
UCC by ruling that “all marriages irrespective of their religion are to be compulsorily
registered” this judgment came in the light of issue of those women’s who are denied of any
marriage by their husband in the cases of seeking maintenance, custody of child or
inheritance. The point to be noted in this judgment is that ‘it applies to all marriages the
marriage happening not concerning their religion’
Apex Court in a recent judgement Shayara Bano v. Union of India & Others,12 struck down a
verbal method of divorcing a wife in Islamic Law also known as ‘Triple Talaq’ which means
a women can be divorce not by following any court procedure but by simple pronouncing the
word ‘Talaq’ three times in a row. This law is as vicious as it sounds, moreover this law was
against the ‘Gender Equality’ which is of course the one of many principles given in the
Constitution of India
So, it can be seen from every aspect that steps have been taken in future regarding the
implementation of the UCC be it for any religion also, India is a nation where there is
diversity of religion, culture, practises etc and to apply a law which curtails each and every
bad practises and let the good ones be coded uniformly it will obviously take time. It can be
done only by putting stone over stone and the most important thing to be mention here is the
mindset of the people, needless to say but whatever good or bad things prevail in a society it
come out from our mind, in general if we take an example as to, how to do recognise that a
particular law or an Act is unlawful or is violative of certain fundamental rights? The answer
is simple we have been taught from starting to recognize things as good or bad.
And in order to temper with things that is there in the core of the mind of people certain
things need to be taken care of for example, firstly it would be a slow process nothing good
can be achieved instantly. As we have seen in the cases of Muslim Women, The Apex Court
has given various judgments in favouring them in removal of law which ought to have taken
their rights, be it Civil or Fundamental rights. Secondly, we need to do a comparative analysis
of the civil codes not just of our country but of various countries like America, France, Japan
etc moreover Goa is the only state in which UCC prevail and it is prevailing since the time of
annexure by the Portuguese. Many amendments and alteration have been throughout this time
but the main core of it still remains the same. So, the it should be noted that if it can prevail in
Goa then why not in the other states?

9
Ibid, at 547
10
(2006) 4 SCC 558
11
(2005) 2 SCC 578
12
(2017) 9 SCC 1
Though there prevails immeasurable diversity in India, multiplicity of law is also not
acceptable. There is an utmost need for a uniform law governing every religion under the
same blanket which will in order to the previous laws should not be promoting gender
discrimination specifically in the civil matters irrespective of any religion. The Hindu law
cannot be applied on all, the same goes for the other religion also, as people have fought out
the evil of triple talaq, same should be done to polygamy So, in the end to sum up it should be
noted that the Constitution of India talks about ‘Secularism’ which means that the state holds
no religion. Moreover, different streams of religion need to come together and come with a
more codified law in the spirit of secularism. The same can be attained by applying the policy
of ‘One Nation One Law’