BJP supporters celebrating the introduction of UCC Bill in the Uttarakhand Assembly on Feb. 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The Uttarakhand government on Saturday constituted a nine-member committee to prepare the draft rules for the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), after the UCC Bill was passed by the Assembly on February 7.
The committee will be headed by retired IAS officer Shatrughan Singh. Mr. Singh was also in the five-member committee formed by the State government in May 2022, to prepare a draft for the UCC.
Editorial | Towards uniformity: On the UCC adopted by the Uttarakhand Assembly
Additional Secretary (Justice) Uttarakhand Sudhir Singh, Inspector General of Police Training Barinderjit Singh, Doon University Vice-Chancellor Surekha Dangwal and social worker Manu Gaur are among the members of the committee set up to prepare UCC rules. Ms. Dangwal and Mr. Gaur too were part of the UCC draft committee.
Additional Secretary, Personnel; Additional Secretary, Panchayati Raj; Additional Secretary, Urban Development; and Additional Secretary, Finance; have been made ex-officio members in the committee.
The introduction of a UCC was a key poll promise of the BJP in the run-up to the 2014 general election. It was reiterated by the party in Uttarakhand before the 2022 Assembly election. Following its victory, the BJP government under the leadership of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami constituted a five-member committee led by former Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai to draft the legislation. The committee submitted its report to the government on February 2. Within three days of getting the draft, the Assembly passed the Bill on Wednesday, despite the Opposition’s demand that the Bill be handed over to the House’s select committee first.
Terming it a “historic moment”, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the Assembly had become the first legislature in independent India to pass a Bill that imposes common rules for all communities — except Scheduled Tribes — on marriage, divorce, inheritances, and live-in relationships.
The Bill will now be sent to the President for approval.
