U'khand UCC: Draft to be submitted on Fri, special session for legislation

The Uttarakhand government-appointed panel to prepare a draft of the Uniform Civil Code will submit the document to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami here on Friday.

A special four-day session of the Uttarakhand Assembly has already been convened from February 5-8 to pass a legislation on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).

The draft will be discussed in a meeting of the state Cabinet before it is tabled in the form of a Bill in the Assembly.

Passing a legislation on the UCC will fulfil a major promise made by the BJP to the people of the state in the run-up to the 2022 Assembly polls, which saw the saffron party storm to power with a landslide victory for the second consecutive term - a feat achieved for the first time by any political party in the state which came into being in 2000.

The second consecutive electoral win was interpreted by the BJP as the people's mandate for a UCC and the Dhami government decided at the very first meeting of the state Cabinet in March, 2022 to constitute a committee to prepare a draft for the same.

A five-member committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai to draft the UCC was later formed in May, 2022 to prepare a draft of the UCC.

If implemented, Uttarakhand will become the first state in the country after Independence to adopt the UCC. It has been operational in Goa since the days of the Portugese rule.

The UCC will provide a legal framework for a uniform marriage, divorce, land, property and inheritance laws for all citizens irrespective of their religion.

The UCC drafting committee, which also consists of retired justice Pramod Kohli, social activist Manu Gaur, former Uttarakhand chief secretary Shatrughan Singh and Vice Chancellor of Doon University Surekha Dangwal, has been given a total of four extensions, the latest one of 15 days in January this year.

The extensions were given to the panel to look into different aspects before finalising its report.

It received 2.33 lakh written suggestions and held 60 meetings in which the members interacted with around 60,000 people.