Harshit Joshi talks about the need for Uniform Civil Code in the country.
INTRODUCTION
Uniform civil code under Article 44 is a proposal to replace the various personal laws of different community or religion which are based on their particular traditions or customs with a common set of rules governing every citizen of the country. It is believed that when the constitution was created there was a lot a debate that whether there should be uniform civil code in the country or not, this long debate also didn’t have any concrete solution and at last, a compromise was done and uniform civil code was put into directive principles of state policies. It is contained in Article 44 of directive principles of state policies. But it is said in Article 37 that directive principles are not enforceable by court of law therefore uniform civil code has now became one of the most debatable topic in our country. The major problem in implementing it is that our country has a variety of religions and community among which some have contradicting traditions and views. Considering two of the major religions in the country Hinduism and Islam, let us assume that the Hindu community is ready to accept uniform civil code than what about Muslims. Muslim law is based on Qur’an, they just follow the rules and regulations which are right as per as Qur’an.
Broadly uniform civil code covers marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption and maintenance. Hindu law has the age of marriage 21 for boys and 18 for girls whereas in Muslim law there is no fixed age for girls for marriage, they are considered to be eligible for marriage whenever they hit puberty. In divorce also there is a three times talaq saying system. In Islam inheritance of property is mentioned and it is pre decided that who will get how much also adoption is considered as illegal in Islam, maintenance is given just till the period of iddat in Islam. The Muslim traditions just contradict the customs and traditions followed by Hindus and other laws. If the majority law is adopted as general law then Muslims will protest against it
This debate of uniform civil code became more powerful after Mohd Ahmad Khan vs. Shah Bano Begum in 1985, Shah Bano was a 62 years old Muslim women from Indore her husband gave her divorce and after sometimes stopped giving her maintenance and this matter went in court of law claiming maintenance under section 125 of CRPC – law for women and after its judgment Muslims started protesting that the judgment was against their personal law .thus the need of uniform civil code again became a question
The second case when supreme court gave a strong reminder for the need of common civil code was in Sarla Mudgal vs. Union Of India (AIR 1995 SC 153) this time the question was whether after a Hindu marriage the husband could convert into Islam and marry second wife without divorcing the first one.
Since independence the need of uniform civil code was putted into question several times, the objective behind a uniform civil code is to have national integration among people and to have common understanding between them. After its implementation all the religions and community would come on a same and equal platform and can be judged on the basis of common law .this will promote national integrity and unity, ideally it focuses not on traditions of any particular law but it focuses on the rights of persons and justice, drafting the uniform civil code will put give rise to several controversies
When the whole India is in controversy of uniform civil code the state of goad is a example for rest of the country, the state of goad has enacted a set of family laws which is applied to every community and religion of goa. it is based on Portuguese civil code of 1867, the family law of goa governs matter like marriage, succession, divorce, guardianship, etc. the provisions in goa are made quite strict which ensures proper distribution of property in goa the Muslims cannot marry a second wife nor divorce the existing one by just saying talaq three times if their marriage is registered in goa .
Till now there has been no proper solution to implement uniform civil code in the country. According to supporters of uniform civil code the major reasons to implement uniform civil code is that as India is a secular state so if every religion is treated equal then the laws for every religion should also be the same and it after its implementation women will have more rights and power as if now they are considered inferior to men in many religions. the law commission was recently asked by government of India to have a look on this matter and to analyse that if this could be implemented in the country or not. It will also help in removing vote bank politics in which most of the parties are indulged during elections If every religion will be covered under the same laws, the politicians will have less to offer minorities in exchange of their vote. Not having a uniform civil code is harm to real democracy and it needs to be changed.
