The Uttarakhand government is planning to put its much-talked-about Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in place by January-end 2024, after the consecration ceremony of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Senior officials in the state government informed that Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has been alerted by the Union Home Ministry and Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to enact UCC before the announcement of the Lok Sabha polls 2024. According to the officials, BJP’s Central leadership is looking at the political dividends the party could gain from the timing of the enactment of the law.

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BJP leaders in Uttarakhand have also confirmed that the Dhami Government has been directed by the Centre to call a special session of the state assembly to enact UCC.
“UCC was a commitment made to the people of Uttarakhand by the chief minister and our government. We hope the special committee of experts on the UCC constituted in 2022 will soon submit its report to the government. The government will decide on its enactment accordingly. If needed special session of the assembly can also be called,” informed state Health and Education Minister Dhan Singh Rawat.

On the other hand, the expert panel formed by the state government headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai is said to have readied its draft after wider-spread public consultations across the state.

The Justice Desai Committee was given three extensions after its constitution on May 27, 2022, for six months. The last extension was given in September this year as the Committee’s tenure was to end on September 27. The panel was granted the first extension for four months in November 2022 and the second for another four months in May 2023.
Earlier in June this year, Justice Desai claimed that the draft UCC was almost complete and he was confident of submitting it to the government at the earliest possible time. However, the committee, as informed by a senior official in the state Home Department, could not prepare its report as claimed and the state government had to give more time to it.
The expert committee had the mandate to dwell into the personal civil laws of different communities and draft UCC on gender equality, inheritance, and property and adoption rights besides looking into several customary practices in the state

UCC was one of the major electoral promises verbally made by Dhami on the eve of voting in the 2022 assembly elections in Uttarakhand. However, it was not included in the party’s poll manifesto. Dhami had been repeatedly making statements that his government was bound to expedite his UCC promise as it would set an example for other states in the Union.