GUWAHATI: The Assam government has constituted a three-member committee to draft the proposed anti-polygamy law.
It has been constituted with Advocate General, Legal Remembrancer and Director General of Police.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the state government had earlier constituted a committee to examine the “legislative competence of the state legislature” to enact a law to end polygamy.
“We first wanted to check if the state government has the right to ban polygamy. We had formed a committee with retired Gauhati High Court judge Justice Rumi Phookan as its chairperson. The committee said the government has the right,” Sarma told journalists.
The government had sought the views of the public on the proposed anti-polygamy law. Altogether 149 individuals and organisations responded and of them, 146 supported it while the remaining three objected to it.
“Ahead of the last Assembly elections, we had promised to bring in a law against love jihad. Covering all these (polygamy and love jihad), we marched ahead to bring the law. We have now formed another committee and assigned it to draft the proposed anti-polygamy law,” Sarma said.
He was hopeful the bill to ban polygamy could be introduced in the Assembly when it meets in December.
The previous committee had understandably scrutinised the provisions of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act, 1937, along with Article 25 of the Constitution of India, in relation to the directive principle of state policy for a uniform civil code.
Earlier, Sarma could not share any data on the prevalence of polygamy in the state but he had stated that a lot of cases were detected in southern Assam’s Barak Valley and central Assam’s Jamunamukh and Hojai. Polygamy is almost nil among indigenous Muslims and people who are educated, he had said.
Meanwhile, Sarma said as long as the sun and the moon are there, there would be Hindutva. “Hinduism has been there for the past 5,000 years. Hindutva will remain,” he said.