Uttarakhand Assembly Gears Up For Passage Of Uniform Civil Code Bill On 5 February: Report

The Uttarakhand Assembly is set to hold a special one-day session on 5 February specifically to discuss and pass the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill.

This comes as a five-member committee, led by former Supreme Court Justice Rajana Prakash Desai, that was set up by the state in May 2022 is likely to submit its report to the government on 2 February or 3 February, Indian Express reported citing sources.

The report focuses on promoting gender equality and ensuring equal rights for daughters in matters of ancestral property. However, the report does not propose increasing the legal age for women's marriage to 21, instead recommending it remain at 18.

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After the UCC Bill is passed in the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, it is expected that two other BJP-led states, Gujarat and Assam, will introduce and pass similar legislation in their respective assemblies

If everything goes as per plan, three states will have enacted the Uniform Civil Code before the Lok Sabha elections in the next few months.

A note issued on Friday from the Uttarakhand Assembly Secretariat states: “Whereas Honourable Governor, Uttarakhand had summoned the Fifth Vidhan Sabha of Uttarakhand to meet for the second session of the year 2023 at 11AM on Tuesday, the 05th September, 2023, in the Sabha Mandap, Vidhan Sabha Bhawan, Dehradun and which as adjourned sine die on 08th September 2023 in continuation there of the Honourable Speaker of Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly again summoned the House from Monday, 5 February, 2024 at 11 am in the Sabha Mandal, Vidhan Sabha, Dehradun.”

The session will be for one day and the House is expected to be adjourned after the Bill is passed.

“A similar draft will be discussed and passed by both the Gujarat and Assam assemblies,” the source was quoted as saying in the IE report.

The report and the draft Bill, originally written in English, are being translated into Hindi, as Hindi is the working language of legislative matters in Uttarakhand.

This translation is being carried out by three members of the committee – social activist Manu Gaur, former chief secretary and IAS officer Shatrughan Singh, and Doon University Vice-Chancellor Surekha Dangwal – in their office in Dehradun. The process includes not just translation, but also design and printing.

The UCC was one of the major poll promises of the BJP in the run-up to the state Assembly elections in February 2022. The committee was announced after the first Cabinet meeting of the newly-formed Uttarakhand government.

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