RECOMMENDATION PAPER

All India Political Parties Meet

Agenda: Uniform Civil Code

Author: Narendra Singh Tomar

RECOMMENDATIONS/SOLUTIONS

1. Uniform Civil Code is the need of the hour to ensure equality of status and opportunity by effecting equal
rights to all and upholding the values of our Constitution.
2. Uniform Civil Code will help eliminate regional disparities in personal laws as well. For eg. Presently,
Mayukha, Mitakshara, Dayabhaga schools of law exist, which change the scope of rights for the same
communities only because of their domicile which is against the idea of a Secular Federal Democratic
Republic. This reveals how codification would be inadequate in ensuring uniformity.
3. Beginning with International Law, the first step must be withdrawing India’s reservations to Article 16,
Paragraph 1 of Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against Women to make our legal framework
eligible and in consonance with our internationally ratified instruments to reform personal laws for women
empowerment and gender neutrality.
4. A draft Uniform Civil Code should be prepared following principles laid down by the Apex Court in Bai
Tahira v Ali Hussain, and the draft should be reviewed by a Parliamentary Standing Committee and be put
on the website of all ministries and allow suggestions from the general public, to avoid taking views of only
orthodox conservative religious leaders which will serve no purpose.
5. Personal Laws should be removed from the legal framework of India, because they are in the Concurrent
List and that allows for setting different standards of rights for people basis the State Government’s
discretion in a matter that should have no existence in social relations since Religion is only limited to
Man’s relationship with God.
6. Boards such as the AIMPLB, etc. should be delegitimised to the extent of issuing fatwas since that creates a
parallel judicial and legislative authority which has no existence neither in our constitution nor in our
Criminal or Civil Justice System.
7. As far as Domestic Law is concerned, bigamy, cruelty, desertion with the intent of harassment should
become criminal offences, thus ensuring a more definite set of rights for women to approach courts, unlike
right now, whereby only civil remedies of compensation exist which are vastly inadequate.
8. There should be an amendment in People’s Representation Act, to forbid and allow criminal charges on
politicians making communally charged statements to incite hatred and discontentment.
9. Government should file a review petition in the case of Ahmadabad Women’s Action Group to allow
Supreme Court to set the right precedent for the country by examining the constitutional validity of
Personal Laws, since they denied doing it earlier and Uniform Civil Code will take some time to pass and
by then rights should be safeguarded.
10. School Curriculums should be modified to include awareness regarding multiplicity of cultures, ethnicities,
religions to ensure the younger generation understands that there is no place for communalism, xenophobia,
gender discrimination in a modern democracy like ours.