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Article
- Faizan Mustafa pointed out that there is no need to mend personal laws for the sake of uniformity in a multi-diverse country like India.
- Recently Law India submitted a ‘Report on Family Law’.
- It stated that uniform civil Commission of code is neither desirable nor necessary for a multi-religious country and social democracy like India.
What is Uniform Civil Code(UCC)?
- Uniform Civil Code is a proposal to replace personal laws of different communities with a common set of laws governing all citizens.
Constitution Provision
- Article 44 of the Indian Constitution states,” The State shall endeavour to secure for citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.”
Debate between legal pluralism and radical libertarianism
- Legal Pluralism– Legal pluralism is the existence of multiple legal systems within one (human) population and/or geographic area.
- Radical Libertarianism– Libertarians uphold liberty as a core principle. They emphasize freedom of choice, individual judgement, etc.
- The writer states that in history we have pluralistic legal systems where multiple sources of law existed therefore there is no need of uniformity rather what we need is just laws.
- The Law Commission also recognised plurality of diverse personal laws and proposed internal reforms in personal reforms to make them compatible with the constitutional provisions of equality and non-discrimination.
- In pursuance of Law Commission report, religious communities should take steps to initiate internal reforms in personal laws.
Supreme Court Judgements
- ABC v. The State (NCT of Delhi)- SC stated that DPSP envisages about uniform civil code. But the writer suggested this case is not dealing with any personal law rather with the provisions of Guardians and Wards Act, 1890.
- In Saral Mudgal(2015)- SC stated that those who stayed back in India after partition knew that India believes in one nation and no community can claim separate religious laws.
- Constituent Assembly debates– Constitutional maker were divided whether to put UCC as a justiciable rights under Part III or non-justiciable rights under Part IV.
Preserving legal diversity
- Article 44 has used the term ‘uniform’ not ‘common’ because uniform means ‘same in similar conditions’.
- The constitutional makers has included ‘personal laws’ in the concurrent list to preserve legal diversity. The Law Commission further affirmed it in the report.
Diversity in different laws
- Even criminal laws are not uniform in our country. States have mend the Indian Penal Code(IPC), 1860, and the Criminal Procedure Code(CrPC), 1973.
- Recently, Punjab introduced Section 295AA to the IPC- life term in all sacrilege cases.
- Similarly, Hindus also do not have uniform laws. The same is true for Muslims and Christians.
- The constitution have provisions to protect local customs of states like in the case of Nagaland.
- Goa is the only state in India that have a uniform civil code.
- In case of Muslims, Sharia Act is not uniformly applicable and many Muslims continue to be governed by customary law which differs with the Sharia law.
Forgotten Issues
- It is to be noticed that there are many other important DPSP which need urgent notice like right to work, distribution of community resources to sub-serve the common good, avoidance of concentration of wealth in few hands, etc but no one is bothering about that.
Way Forward
- The writer suggest mending the personal laws to bring changes for the betterment of a community is welcome but to change it for bringing uniformity is not justifiable.
- Just laws are more important than uniform laws.
