uniform civil code in india Photo Credit: IANS Prime Minister Narendra Modi accompanied by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP working president JP Nadda

Key Highlights The UCC Bill is part of NDA government's nationalistic outlook for 'one India'

The Centre intends to make the UCC a reality by early next year

Sources suggest that drafting of the uniform civil code is underway

New Delhi: After scrapping the provision of the Indian Constitution's Article 370 which accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir, the Modi government is likely to table Uniform Civil Code Bill, which mandates implementing a common set of laws for all Indian citizens irrespective of their faith, in Parliament in the month of December 2019.

The Centre intends to make the UCC a reality by early next year.

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Sources suggest that drafting of uniform civil code is underway. The UCC Bill is part of NDA government's nationalistic outlook for 'one India'.

Notably, a section of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party is seeking the enactment of the UCC as a next big legal measure.

Notably, the Law Commission, in a consultation paper in 2018, had observed that there was a lack of consensus on the UCC.

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The Commission had further emphasised the need to do away with discrimination.

"This way, some of the differences within personal laws, which are meaningful, can be preserved and inequality weeded out to the greatest extent possible without absolute uniformity," the Commission had said.

The Supreme Court had last month observed that no action has been taken to secure for the citizens a Uniform Civil Code throughout the territory of India.

Referring to the case of Goa, the SC had said: "Muslim men whose marriages are registered in Goa, cannot practice polygamy. Further, even for followers of Islam, there is no provision for a verbal divorce."

Ironically, within India, numerous religion-specific civil codes separately govern the followers of different faiths. Meanwhile, Goa is an exception to that rule as a single code governs all residents in this state, irrespective of religion, ethnicity or linguistic affiliation. That is so because the Goa civil code is applicable here and it is largely based on the Portuguese Civil Code (Código Civil Português) of 1867, which was introduced in Goa in 1870. Goa was liberated from Portuguese colonial rulers on 18 December 1961 and joined to the Indian union.

In a judgment, Justice Deepak Gupta referred to the Uniform Civil Code and said: "Though Hindu laws were codified in the year 1956, there has been no attempt to frame a Uniform Civil Code applicable to all citizens of the country despite exhortations."

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In the meantime, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had yesterday called for the Uniform Civil Code. "By scrapping Article 370, the dream of Balasaheb Thackeray has been fulfilled. Now we want the Uniform Civil Code," Thackeray had said.