Gender parity, equality will shape laws to bring in Uniform Civil Code

It is likely that the UCC could be a string of tweaks in existing laws to bring in broad uniformity in personal laws over a single code governing all aspects of marriage and inheritance, sources indicated.

The proposed UCC is also likely to reframe personal laws to ensure equal treatment before law. This could include, for example, persons being denied inheritance rights under very narrow, specific grounds.

On the issue of benefits that a community might enjoy over others, the Law Commission is not in favour of dropping it altogether. For example, the concept of Hindu Undivided Family and the tax benefits it provides, one option could be to suggest simply extending it to other communities rather than doing away with it. Proposed as a distinct category for taxation in 1917, apart from Hindus, families belonging to the Jain, Buddhist and Sikh faith can also create HUFs.

Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a strong pitch for UCC – one of the three issues at the heart of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideological agenda, the other two being the Ram temple in Ayodhya and abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir – after the Law Commission commenced its consultation exercise on June 14, there is much debate on the contours of the proposed code.

On July 4, BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law, is learnt to have questioned the feasibility of a UCC in tribal areas, including those in the North East, since their customs, traditions and rituals are different from other communities and the Constitution grants them protection.

However, it is learnt that the Commission is mulling leaving out specific customs which prescribe religious practices from the discussion on UCC.

On June 14, the 22nd Law Commission headed by former Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi invited public views on UCC. So far, the Commission has received over 20 lakh responses through email, and these continue to pour in. Over the next few months, the Commission is likely to begin nation-wide public consultations and share a detailed questionnaire with citizens on the issue.