Bhopal: Twelve days after the Vishnu Deo Sai-led BJP government approved the formation of a high-level committee to draft the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in Chhattisgarh, the BJP government headed by Dr Mohan Yadav in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh has constituted a similar six-member panel.
It has been mandated to submit a draft Bill and detailed report within 60 days, with plans to bring the law into force by Diwali 2026.
In what is being seen as a politically significant and legally sensitive move, the MP government constituted the committee on Monday night, to be headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai.
Justice Desai, who recently secured a second term as chairperson of the Press Council of India, also heads the identical UCC panel constituted by the Chhattisgarh government on April 15, 2026, and has earlier led similar panels that drafted the UCC in BJP-ruled Uttarakhand and Gujarat.
The panel will also include retired IAS officer Shatrughan Singh, legal expert Anup Nair, academician Gopal Sharma and social worker Budhpal Singh, while IAS officer Ajay Katesaria, an additional secretary in the MP government, will serve as the panel’s secretary.
The committee has been mandated to conduct a detailed study of personal and family laws and processes, including those pertaining to marriage, divorce or separation, maintenance, succession and other related matters.
A key aspect of the committee’s mandate will be to focus on live in relationships, including provisions related to registration, legal rights and obligations arising from such arrangements, an issue that has emerged as a politically and socially contentious frontier in civil law reform.
The panel will also study in detail the UCC models of Uttarakhand and Gujarat, evaluating their drafting process, implementation strategy and legal architecture before finalising the draft for Madhya Pradesh.
According to informed sources, women’s rights, child protection and equality safeguards will form the nucleus of the proposed framework, with the committee specifically directed to ensure that any legal transformation protects vulnerable groups while harmonising diverse legal traditions.
The panel will also hold Jan Sunwais (public hearings) and invite suggestions and objections from various stakeholders, including citizens, legal experts, religious groups and social organisations.
As per sources, the MP government is working towards introducing the legislation by Diwali.
Madhya Pradesh’s vast tribal population and constitutional protections under the Fifth Schedule could pose serious legal hurdles, making the state’s UCC exercise far more complex than a conventional legislative reform.
Questions surrounding customary tribal practices, inheritance norms and community autonomy are expected to become major flashpoints as the draft takes shape.
The main challenge in drafting the UCC Bill in MP relates to tribal and particularly vulnerable tribal groups, especially as they follow traditional marriage systems and practices, such as the Dapa practice, where the groom’s family pays the bride price to the bride’s father, and the Bhageli or Lamsena marriage, where a young man and woman elope with mutual consent followed by later recognition of their union, sources claimed.
With 21 per cent of the state’s population belonging to the Scheduled Tribe category, MP has the largest tribal population in the country.
This significant section of the population may reportedly be exempted from the proposed Bill, on the lines of Uttarakhand and Gujarat, where Scheduled Tribes are explicitly exempt from the UCC laws passed in 2024 and 2026 respectively, sources added.
