Going by the state government’s claim, the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code (UCC) has become the much-wanted document for the other states willing to formulate a similar law for their people.
According to the state government, queries have so far poured in from four states seeking copies of the document of the UCC passed by the state assembly on Wednesday.
While the demand for the Pushkar Singh Dhami Government’s legislation has come from four states, other states too are mulling over procuring, studying and implementing it. These states have already expressed their willingness to bring in the UCC for their people. Now, they have asked the state government to share copies of the Bill passed by the Uttarakhand legislature.
State Cabinet Minister for Tourism, Culture, Panchayat and Rural Development Satpal Maharaj said, “l am told that the demand for our UCC has suddenly gone up. Assam, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh governments have asked the state to provide them copies of draft UCC while other states have expressed their willingness to make similar demand in coming days.”
The state states that expressed their desire to procure a copy of the UCC, the minister said include Chhattisgarh and Haryana. They all are bound to join the Uttarakhand bandwagon in coming days. “In fact, a couple of states had asked for copies of the draft Bill even before it was tabled in the assembly, but we refused to share it,” he added.
Maharaj said the provisions of the Uttarakhand UCC would take care of every section of society without interfering with their personal laws. “As claimed by the chief minister, it will prove an ideal law for all the states in the country. They have to fall in line with our UCC cutting across ideological barriers of the respective state governments. You must have seen in the house during discussion on the bill that opposition legislators had nothing substantial to put forth in support of their contradiction,” said the minister.
He claimed the Uttarakhand UCC would also serve as a specimen for the Centre in framing common civil code for the people of India at large.
Apart from Assam, BJP regimes in Rajashthan and Madhya Pradesh have conveyed their willingness to enact UCC in their states. Chhattisgarh, according to the Uttarakhand minister, is also working on an action plan on the UCC.
However, for the Vishnu Sai Government in Chhattisgarh, the law proves a tightrope walk as the state has 31 per cent tribal population. Uttarakhand with only 3 per cent Schedule Tribe (ST) population, kept them out of the purview of the UCC.