Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan is wary of enacting a ‘uniform civil code’ to bring all religions and communities under uniform laws to govern marriages, divorces and maintenance.
Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan is wary of enacting a ‘uniform civil code’ to bring all religions and communities under uniform laws to govern marriages, divorces and maintenance. The issue is ‘highly sensitive’, he says.
“The question of Uniform Civil Code is a very-very sensitive issue. India is a country which has a multifarious race, caste and community,” the CJI said at the annual MK Nambiar Memorial Lecture here on Wednesday.
Though the Supreme Court has, in certain judgments in the past, underlined the need for a UCC to unify the country with one thread, the CJI feels the issue needs to be handled carefully. He said the UCC can’t be done in a hurry, as even Britishers had taken 30 years to implement the Indian Penal Code, “It took almost thirty years for Britishers to implement the Penal Code, after its codification in 1830.”
Article 44 of the Constitution envisages, “The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India”. Former Attorney-General Soli J Sorabjee feels an academic discussion on UCC is always welcome but the challenge must be met by the legislature, adding that “there cannot be an unilateral imposition of the code”.
The Union government has been saying for many years that it would secure consensus and then take a step to fulfil the constitutional aspiration for a UCC. The need for UCC has been stressed since the Shah Bano judgment in 1985.
The judgement said that the UCC would help the cause of national integration by removing disparate loyalties to law which have conflicting ideologies. A decade later, the Supreme Court held, “Where more than 80% of the citizens have been brought under codified personal law, there is no justification whatsoever to keep in abeyance, any more, the introduction of the UCC for all citizens in India”.
In 2003, the court regretted that, “Article 44 has not been given effect to... The aforesaid provision is based on the premise that there is no necessary connection between religious and personal law in a civilised society’’.
“Parliament is still to step in for framing a code. The code will help bring national integration by removing ideological contradictions,’’ the court reiterated.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}