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Uniform Civil Code
The Law Commission of India sought for a public vote on the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country. It released a questionnaire on 7th October 2016 that can be filled out by anybody and sent back within 45 days.
The Law Commission of India sought for a public vote on the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country. It released a questionnaire on 7th October 2016 that can be filled out by anybody and sent back within 45 days. Rejecting it, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) said: "We are staying in this country according to the Constitution of the country. The Constitution has guaranteed the right to live in our country to us."
Justice BS Chauhan, who heads the panel, outlined the objective of the questionnaire was to "address discrimination against various groups and harmonise various cultural practices." It also invited suggestions on "all possible models and templates" of a common civil code. Uniform civil code is the proposal to replace the personal laws based on the scriptures and customs of each major religious community in India with a common set governing every citizen. Article 44 of the Directive Principles in India sets its implementation as duty of the State.
Apart from being an important issue regarding secularism in India, it became one of the most controversial topics in contemporary politics during the Shah Bano case in 1985. Shah Bano, a 62-year-old Muslim mother of five from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, was divorced by her husband in 1978. In the Supreme Court, she won the right to alimony from her husband.
However, the Indian Parliament reversed the judgement under pressure from Islamic orthodoxy. The Congress Government, panicky in an election year, caved in under the pressure of the orthodoxy. It enacted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. The most controversial provision of the Act was that it gave a Muslim woman the right to maintenance for the period of iddat (about three months) after the divorce, and shifted the onus of maintaining her to her relatives or the Wakf Board.
The Act was seen as discriminatory as it denied divorced Muslim women the right to basic maintenance which women of other faiths had recourse to under secular law.Though a demand for a uniform civil code was earlier made by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, his supporters and women activists, they had to finally accept the compromise of it being added to the Directive Principles because of heavy opposition.
