Article review on uniform civil code and the Indian Judiciary

Introduction of the author

Atish Chakraborty in his article addressing the fact that the uniform civil code is a
necessity to eradicate injustice towards women due to the different personal laws, he
is an author that I have referred before and have reviewed articles, in this article he
goes on the say that the uniform civil code under the directive principles of state
policy as far as article 44 of the constitution of Indian is a dead letter ever since the
framing of the constitution. It is safe to say that fundamental rights supersede
directive principles of state policy, in this particular article the clash of article 44 and
section 17 and 20 clash, while articles 17 to 20 of the constitution of India elucidate
that equality is of primary importance and with the existence of personal laws
equality of women when in comes to matters regarding marriage, divorce,
inheritance and maintenance they get the short end of the stick. Mr Atish
Chakraborty goes on the mention cases such as the Shan Bano case as well as the
Sarla Mugdal cases in which women had finally achieved justice and in the article, he
mentions Martin Luther King’s infamous quote “injustice anywhere is injustice
everywhere”.

Summary of the article

To summarize the article, it mainly focuses on the establishment of a uniform civil
code that would govern matters such as divorce, marriage, inheritance and
maintenance. Although this has been protested against and creates a rift between
religions and not allowing them to enjoy their personal rights such as polygamy with
regard to Muslim law and inheritance with regard to Hindu law. The Indian divorce
act came into being in 1986 and many divorces have been solemnized though mutual
consent under this act. Anish Chakraborty aims to implement such type of uniform
code so that women in our country do not have to suffer from biased rules and
regulations set by their personal laws. Ultimately it is the men that enjoy the greater
share of land with regard to inheritance under Hindu law and polygamy under
Muslim law with divorce and maintenance being childish with the triple talak system
and an inadequate maintenance criterion. Cases such as the Shan Bano is a landmark
judgment which kicked off the justification of using the criminal procedure code i.e.,
Crpc under which section 125 allows the wife to claim fair amount of maintenance
and not obligated to abide only by the personal Muslim law where the husband was
only made to pay for 2 months of maintenance after marriage another substantive
case in the article the Sarla Mugdal v. Union of India where a husband converted
from Hindu to Muslim so that he can enjoy polygamy, the apex court favour the
woman and held that the second marriage and the conversion was illegitimate these
are the first few cases where we see equality for women irrespective of their faith or
religion achieving justice. The article goes on to say although the uniform civil code is
still not progressive and substantial and women continue to be disregarded when it
comes to matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance and maintenance, emphasising
that article 44 of the constitution is a dead letter since it is not a fundamental right
rather it is directive principle of state policy and urges the reader to fight for section
44 of the constitution of India which states that the state shall “endeavour” to secure
uniform civil code for the citizens of India not making it a fundamental right thus
allowing a bypass for personal laws that have existed for a long to continue to exploit
women. We need to focus on how we can bring all the religious laws together and
create a progressive and safe set of laws for women.

Comment, critique, review

My comments personally would be that yes I do respect and ought to support the
decision of making a uniform civil code that would eliminate injustice towards
women regardless of any form of religion they follow, men and women are humans
and one should not have benefit over the other or special exceptions although this
comment would be faced with a lot of backlash and adversity because I am for a
uniform civil code and do not want to see a state where women do not enjoy the same
rights as men as mentioned in the paper it has to be a slow and gradual process with
the generation now and in the future being more open minded and more respect not
only their own moral but that of women and the general public at large. I have no
criticisms towards the article of Mr Anish Chakraborty while reading the article I was
able to observe a lot of thought had been put into writing the article and will
personally lean towards equality of all citizens of India since that was the core
importance and idea that went into framing of the constitution not to say that I do
not respect the secularity, diversity of our country.

Conclusion
To conclude to would like to thank my professor Ramya Ma’am for giving me the
opportunity to go forward with this article, I had an intuitive and interesting time
reading the article, Muslim laws, Hindu laws, Christian laws and Parsi laws have
their own pros and cons although that should not affect the status or discriminate
individual who are at large women. I feel like the directive principle of state policy
should be given more importance and should not exist as a dead letter with the
courts actually referring to them in modern times since a lot of though had been put
in into framing of the constitution for the equality of all its citizens regardless of what
religion or caste they belong to. I hope I have covered some of the most important
aspects of the article and I am sure that I have gotten a better understanding of the
uniform civil code and pleased to see that the code of criminal procedures have been
implemented for the attainment of justice for women regardless for the unfair terms
of personal laws.