BHOPAL: The high-level committee formed for the preparation of a draft Uniform Civil Code (UCC) held a marathon seven-hour meeting with various stakeholders in Bhopal on Monday, as the two-month deadline nears an end.
The UCC bill is likely to be introduced in the coming monsoon session of the Vidhan Sabha, starting July 20.
The meeting was held ahead of the panel’s visit to Gwalior, the last of Madhya Pradesh's 55 districts, to hold interactive discussions with citizens and learn of their concerns regarding the UCC.
The meeting began at 10.30 am and continued till evening. Representatives of various government commissions, officials from different government departments, members of national political parties, religious leaders and public representatives from Bhopal district attended the meeting and submitted their suggestions and proposals before the six-member high-level committee.
Surprisingly, out of the six national political parties whose representatives were invited to put forward their suggestions/concerns, only the representatives of two political parties--the ruling BJP and opposition CPI(M)--turned up with their concerns and suggestions before the committee members.
Barring CPI(M), which was represented by its state committee member PV Ramachandran and Bhopal district secretary Tej Kumar Tigga, none of the other opposition parties, including Congress, BSP, SP and AAP, sent their representatives to share the suggestions and concerns with the Committee members.
The state Congress president Jitu Patwari instead posted a video on X, terming the state government’s move to implement UCC, as a diversionary tactic to shift public attention from the real issues.
“Before holding UCC discussions, kindly hold a discussion on how many guarantees of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have been fulfilled till date. Will the UCC take care of the traditions and other issues pertaining to tribals, who number 1.60 crore-plus or 21% of MP’s population.”
Second-time Congress MLA from Bhopal Central seat Arif Masood and first-time MLA of the same party from Bhopal-North seat Atif Aqeel, however, attended the meeting in the evening.
Lamenting the absence of his party’s representatives at the committee’s meeting with representatives of national parties earlier in the day, Congress MLA Arif Masood said, “I can’t speak for the other opposition parties. But as far as my party goes, if it was invited and still didn’t send any of its representatives there, then it’s unfortunate and concerning. It's a serious lapse, notwithstanding what the UCC committee drafts, our party representatives should have been there to raise concerns. I’ll take up the matter with the state party chief and also bring it to the notice of the party high-command.”
Ruling BJP, meanwhile, through its state secretary Rahul Kothari and ex-IAS officer SS Uppal submitted detailed suggestions to the Committee on nine points, including marriage and divorce, succession and property rights, adoption and maintenance, guardianship, modernization and digitization, care for elderlies and specially-abled, right to matrimonial property, fast track legal justice in matters related to marriage, divorce and maintenance and special rules for NRIs marrying in India.
Making a novel suggestion, the two-member BJP delegation demanded that if an NRI man marries in India, then the marriage should be compulsorily registered and the passport linked within a week to prevent such wedlocks, where the NRI grooms abandon their Indian brides and flee back abroad. The BJP delegation also demanded that, amid growing incidents of elderly people being abandoned by their children, provision should be made to cancel the transfer of ancestral property to such children and deduct maintenance allowance directly from the income of such irresponsible children.
While the state government, including the CM Dr Mohan Yadav, has made it clear that tribal communities will be kept away from the UCC’s purview, some representatives of the tribal communities who met with the UCC panel members, advocated that all those tribals who voluntarily want to be covered under the UCC should be brought under its purview. Some other tribal community members strongly advocated the need for compulsory marriage registration of tribals to ensure that women and children aren’t deprived of benefits under any government scheme. Some representatives further advocated that while the government intends to keep tribals exempt from UCC, those tribal women who marry non-tribals should be covered under the UCC.
Another major issue which came up for discussion during successive sessions was the issue of live-in relationships. Many participants underscored the need for registering live-in relationships, to prevent abandonment of women partners by male partners after break-ups, levelling of baseless sexual offences charges/allegations by women partners against male partners on severing of ties and securing the future of children born through such relationships.
Religious leaders from Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities raised their concern about the possibility of live-in relationships being legitimized under the umbrella of UCC. The Muslim religious leaders, on expected lines, were most critical of UCC.
“It’s being told to us that Article 44 of the Constitution mandates the state to endeavour to secure a UCC. But why is UCC being implemented first on the state level? It should be implemented nationally after thorough debate in the Parliament. In MP’s context, how can the coming UCC be actually termed as a uniform civil code, when it’s planned to actually exempt tribals from its purview? We’ve compromised on our criminal and civil laws, but we will not allow our personal laws to be superseded by UCC. We will never accept any UCC; we’ll violate it through civil disobedience. Instead of bringing in UCC, we demand a total ban on alcohol in MP and also demand a ban on cow sale, slaughter and export,” the representatives from Muslim community, including Bhopal’s Shahar Qazi, Syed Mushtaq Ali said.
Talking to journalists, the UCC high-level committee member and Uttarakhand’s former chief secretary Shatrughan Singh said, “Efforts are being made to submit the reports summing up the suggestions of various sections of the public as well as the UCC draft before the state government by June-end. If not by June-end, the documents will be submitted by the first week of July. The UCC draft will particularly focus on protecting the interests of women and children.”
