Gujarat passes Uniform Civil Code Bill, requires live-in couples to register

THe gujerat assemblage on tues passed the gujerat unvarying Civil Code (UCC) Bill, making it the second state in independent India after Uttarakhand to codify a common set of personal laws.The legislation, passed after an eight-hour debate, exempts the state’s Scheduled Tribe (ST) population.UCC aims to replace laws based on religious texts or traditions, and focuses on gender parity, the right to equality and the prevention of discrimination. It will apply to marriage, divorce, succession, adoption, guardianship, and the partition of land and assets for all citizens, irrespective of their faith.The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) defended the legislation as a step towards equality, and the opposition Congress raised objections over its implementation and questioned the speed with which the bill was drafted, enacted and passed.Chief minister Bhupendra Patel framed the bill as a step toward “national unity and gender justice”.“This is not against any religion; it is about equality before the law,” Patel told the House. He said the law would finally grant Muslim women equal rights in ancestral property and provide them legal protections on par with women from other communities.He said the UCC was not merely a legal exercise but a step towards equality, justice and national unity. “This is not just a legal process, but our firm resolve to strengthen the national commitment of equality, justice and unity,” he said.The UCC is the third of the three core agendas the ruling BJP has championed since its inception, the other two being the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya and scrapping of Article 370 that gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir.Patel said the bill had provisions for compulsory registration of marriages, registration of live-in relationships, uniform rules for divorce, equal inheritance rights for sons and daughters and penalties for violation of the provisions. He said compulsory registration of marriage would help protect the rights of women and children and prevent fraud and false marital claims and ensure legal recognition of marriage.Like the Uttarakhand law, the bill makes registration of marriage, divorce and live-in relationships mandatory and bars people of any religion or community, except STs, from having more than one spouse. A violation of this provision attracts a jail term of up to seven years’ imprisonment. The same penalty applies to anyone who marries by concealing their identity or committing fraud. Failure to register a live-in relationship may lead to imprisonment of up to three months.“If individuals are of the age between 18 and 21 years, their parents will be informed. Strict punishment is prescribed for coercion or fraud. POCSO provisions apply in cases involving minors, and strict penalties apply if a married person enters into a live-in relationship,” he said.CM Patel said the Bill was prepared after public consultation, court judgments and study of laws in other countries and other Indian states. A committee headed by retired Justice Ranjana Desai drafted the bill.Deputy Chief Minister and Law Minister Harsh Sanghvi said criminal law already applies equally to all citizens and civil law should do the same. “Criminal law is the same for everyone in India. If someone commits theft or murder, punishment is the same regardless of religion. Then why should religion be asked when it comes to marriage, divorce, maintenance or property rights of a daughter?” he said.Sanghvi said the bill rested on four principles: gender equality, legal uniformity, simplification of laws and constitutional morality. He traced the idea of a uniform civil code to the colonial era, when British authorities made criminal laws uniform but deliberately left personal laws separate. He said Dr. B.R. Ambedkar had included Article 44 in the Directive Principles precisely to guide future governments toward a uniform civil code, but successive governments had failed to act on it.“This bill is not against any religion, faith or method of worship. It is not meant to take away customs and traditions. This bill is meant to wipe the tears of lakhs of daughters and mothers who have suffered injustice due to unequal laws,” Sanghvi said.On the question of religious freedom, he said that the code would govern only civil matters and that the protection under Article 25 of the Constitution would remain intact. He also pointed out that several Muslim-majority countries, including Turkey, Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates, do not have separate personal laws.“All Scheduled Tribes will be fully exempted from the proposed Uniform Civil Code. Their customs, marriage, divorce and inheritance practices will not be affected,” Sanghvi said.The Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai Committee, which drafted the bill, received close to 20 lakh public submissions via post, e-mail and a web portal. Sanghvi said suggestions were taken from every district, all religions, communities, and political parties in the state, and that the majority of respondents supported uniform laws on marriage, divorce, maintenance, and property rights.The Congress opposed the bill. Senior leader Amit Chavda objected to the haste at which it was brought, saying the government had not made the Desai Committee report public or tabled it in the state assembly and was pushing the legislation through for electoral benefit without giving lawmakers time to study the proposals.“The people of Gujarat are not going to wait for Congress’s so-called right time. The time for equality has now arrived,” Sanghvi said.Goa has operated under a uniform civil code from before Independence and people have lived there for decades under the same civil law with peace, harmony and equality, he said.Imran Khedawala, the Congress MLA from Ahmedabad’s Jamalpur-Khadia seat and the only Muslim member of the Gujarat Assembly, opposed the Uniform Civil Code Bill. He said the law targets the minority community and stated he would burn the Bill outside the House.Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar said there was a lack of legal clarity on its applicability.He said it was not clear whether the law would apply only to citizens of Gujarat or to all persons residing in Gujarat. He pointed out that lakhs of people from other states live in Gujarat and many people from Gujarat live outside the state, and the Bill did not clearly explain the legal position in such cases.Parmar said the law should not affect neighbouring states and that there should be legal clarity on the law’s jurisdiction and implementation.