Dehradun : The Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday tabled the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) bill in the state legislative assembly. After the assembly passes it and it becomes an Act, Uttarakhand will become the first state post-independence to implement UCC.
Earlier today, CM Dhami posted on X, saying, “with the aim of giving equal rights to the citizens of Devbhoomi Uttarakhand, a Uniform Civil Code bill will be introduced in the Assembly today. It is a moment of pride for all the people of the state that we will be known as the first state in the country to move towards implementing UCC”.
Last week, the Uttarakhand government, in a cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami at his residence, approved the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) draft report.
The UCC draft committee, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, had submitted a 740-page report — divided in four volumes — on February 2.
The submission of the draft culminated an almost two-year process which started on May 27, 2022. Some of the key proposals put forth by the committee include prohibition of polygamy, halala, iddat and child marriage, uniform age for girls’ marriage across all religions, equal inheritance rights for both genders, and mandatory registration of live-in relationships. Also, scheduled tribes (STs) have been exempted from the purview of the bill.
The tribal population in the state, which is around 3%, had been voicing its dissent against UCC in wake of the special status accorded to them.
