By- Aparna Raje Pathak & Dr. Sarita Yadav, Faculty of Law, Amity University, Lucknow
Abstract
The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is a proposed set of personal laws in India that aims to replace the diverse religious laws governing marriage, divorce, inheritance, succession and adoption with a common legal framework. It has been a subject of intense socio-legal debate in Indian jurisprudence, reflecting the complex interplay between constitutional ideals, religious pluralism and legal uniformity.
This paper critically examines historical evolution, constitutional mandate, social and political dimensions of the UCC. It evaluates arguments for and against its implementation and explores judicial precedents. The study concludes by analyzing potential pathways for realization of a Uniform Civil Code in India, balancing constitutional values with social pluralism.
However, the idea gained significant traction in independent India during the framing of the Constitution. Colonial Legacy during British rule, India was governed by a diverse set of personal laws based on religion, ethnicity, and customary practices. The British attempted to introduce uniform laws in certain areas, such as criminal law and property rights, through measures like the Indian Penal Code and the Indian Succession Act.
Keywords : Uniform Civil Code, Indian constitution, personal laws, legal uniformity, socio-legal analysis.
Introduction :
Without a Uniform Civil Code, labeling India to be a Secular nation is just an illusion.
India's essence lies in its profound embrace of religious and cultural diversity, which has been a defining characteristic throughout its history and will endure in the future. India has served as a haven for every religious belief, welcoming and embracing them all. The world recognizes the profound impact of India's great religious figures, and in turn, India has warmly embraced Christianity and Islam, two global religions that emerged in more recent times. Over 2000 years, the practice of both these religions has woven them into the very fabric of India's religious-cultural traditions.
In our country India especially religion plays an important central and definite role in the life of many of its people. But different religions are governed by their laws in the family matters pertaining to marriage, adoption, inheritance, succession, property, partition, custody, divorce, etc. The religion of people determines which law will apply to them in these matters. Attachment to one‘s religion is a natural sentiment, but when these natural sentiments grow to an extreme level to breed intolerance for the other religion, regions, or languages, race, caste, it hits the national integration and many problems are bound to arise.
There are different codes for different communities. Under the present set of laws, Hindus are bound by law to practice monogamy, whereas Muslims are not.Similarly, whereas Hindus have a comprehensive enactment on adoption, this concept is not recognized by the personal laws of Muslims, Christians, and Parsees.
If a Uniform Civil Code is enacted, all citizens of India would be governed by the same law in all such matters. It is true that present-day family law is a mixture of old and new; it is of complicated, incoherent, and non-symmetrical nature and so there is a need for such a code that will do away with diversity in matrimonial law. Family laws of religion need to be changed in view of contemporary social circumstances. These personal law based on religion creates a lot of problems such as uncertainty in the law, violation of fundamental rights such as the right to equality, right to religion guaranteed by the Indian constitution, and hits the secular character national unity, and integrity of the nation which are the basic goals to be achieved. But constitution itself provides a solution for solving these problems in the form of the Uniform Civil Code.
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