CONCEPT OF UNIFORM CIVIL CODE

This article will be discussing about the concept Uniform Civil Code under the Constitution of India.

 

1. INTRODUCTION:

 

The term ‘Uniform Civil Code’ is the proposal to replace the personal laws based on the scriptures and customs of each major religious community in the country with a common set governing every citizen. A society with stable norms is simply inconceivable without some kind of uniformity of the rules of conduct governing multiple relationships of members of united.

 

Early Indian societies demonstrated both uniform rules of social relationship and the norms which suffered from discrimination and prejudices.

 

India has been for centuries a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society and yet it has the distinction of maintaining unity in such diversities. But Indian history also affords traces of religious and ethnic tensions and conflicts besides that harmony. When the Englishmen entered the Indian scenario as our lords, undoubtedly, they influenced certain social norms of the Indians in general through their overbearing political and social attitudes but such influences could not subside to the increasing religious and ethnic tensions. Ultimately, when the British domination came to an end in 1947 it left behind that tension in an accentuated form which was product of their political formula for independence of India.

 

At the same time, India was politically divided into two independent countries, viz., Pakistan and India - a division based on the consideration of the religion-oriented politics. After this political division, Indian social setup and norms of the society were seen in the conspectus of the newly adopted constitution of India in which concept of welfare state came to substitute the concept of police state. With the adoption and enforcement of the constitution in 1950, started a new era in the formation of new social norms in which state has been declared as insurer and guardian of the citizen.

 

Justice, liberty, democracy, equality and fraternity were declared as the goals to be achieved by the supreme law of the land. The chapters of fundamental rights and directive principles of state policy were incorporated for fulfilment of those constitutional goals.

 

These directives impose on the state of the duty to take positive actions in certain directions to promote the welfare of the people and to achieve economic independence. The chapter on fundamental rights imposes certain restrictions on the state as against the individual citizen in order to promote the welfare state of present free India.

 

Thus, to arrest the country’s sufferings from a congeries of religion and sect, the farmers of the constitution tried their best to obviate some of urgent social problems, by incorporating certain provisions. Article 44 is one of them and it envisages the unification of civil law this very article lays down the following directive for the state that “The state shall Endeavour to secure for the citizens a Uniform Civil Code throughout the territory of India.”

 

2. MEANING OF CIVIL CODE:

 

The phrase "Uniform Civil Code" of India refers to the idea of an overarching Civil Law, and the phrase "Civil law" refers to a legal framework influenced by Roman law. In accordance with the civil law principle, all citizens must have access to a written compilation of the laws that apply to everyone equally and without exception. The same set of secular civil laws, regardless of a person's region or religious affiliation, are applied by the uniform civil code to all citizens.

 

3. NATURE AND SCOPE OF ARTICLE 44 OF THE CONSTITUTION.

 

The concept of uniform civil code has been indulged in Part-iv of the Constitution which dealing with the Directive Principle of State Policy. Article 37 of Constitution has clearly said that the Directive Principle will not be enforceable before the Court of Law. It is the reminder to the state that contains the potentials to establish the welfare state.

 

Article 44 of the Indian Constitution states “the State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code through the territory of India”.  

 

This Article requires on the State to take steps for establishing a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India. two objectives were put forward in the Constituent Assembly against the making of a uniform civil code applying throughout India:

 

Firstly, it would infringe the fundamental right to freedom of religion mentioned in Article 25 and

Secondly, it would be a tyranny to the minority.

 

4. SUBJECT MATTERS OF UNIFORM CIVIL CODE:

 

It is significant to note that the term "civil code" refers to the entire body of laws that regulate property rights as well as other aspects of private life, such as marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption, and inheritance. Here are some matters covered by the Uniform Civil Code:

 

• Marriage, Divorce and Other matrimonial clauses;

• Succession (Inheritance);

• Guardianship;

• Maintenance;

• Adoption;

• Partition;

• Gifts and Wills;

• Religious institutions;

• Joint Family System; and matters of Charitable trust, etc.

 

The demand for a uniform civil code essentially entails combining all of these personal laws into a single body of secular law that governs these matters and is applicable to all Indian citizens, regardless of their affiliation with a particular community.

 

In India, the Supreme Court first directed the Parliament to frame a uniform civil code in the year 1985 in the case of Mohammad Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, popularly known as the Shah Bano case.

 

In that case, a indigent Muslim woman who had received triple talaq from her husband filed a maintenance claim against him under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Supreme Court held that the Muslim woman have a right to get maintenance from her husband under Section 125.

 

The second instance in which the Supreme Court again directed the government of Article 44 in the case of Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India (1995).  In that case, the question was whether a Hindu husband, married under the Hindu law, by embracing Islam, can solemnize second marriage The Court held that a Hindu marriage solemnized under the Hindu law can only be dissolved on any of the grounds specified under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. Conversion to Islam and Marrying again would not, by itself, dissolve the Hindu marriage under the Act. And, thus, a second marriage solemnized after converting to Islam would be an offence under Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

 

5. CONCLUSION:

 

Article 44 contained in part IV of the Constitution says that the state “shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India”. While there is no draft or model document yet for the UCC, the framers of the Constitution envisioned that it would be a uniform set of laws that would replace the distinct personal laws of each religion with regard to matters like marriage, divorce, adoption, and inheritance. Part IV of the Constitution outlines the Directive Principles of State Policy, which, while not enforceable or justiciable in a court of law, are fundamental to the country’s governance.