Introduction
Uniform civil code has been a controversial topic within the Indian political system to replace personal laws based on the scriptures and traditions of every major religious group in India with a similar set of rules regulating every citizen. India has flaunted its recent and remarkable advances in the fields of science, technology, medicine, astronomy, and many other competitive facets. At the same time, we have refused to recognize the fact that a large portion of our Indian population is stripped of its basic rights and discriminated against in various spheres of existence.
The crux of the uniform civil code can be exemplified by V. R, Krishna Iyer J. who is known to have given judgment in Bai Tahira v. Ali Hussain Fissalli Chowthi, which sums up the entire argument for the presence and existence of a uniform civil code, that is there is more Mohamed in Manu that we realize, more Manu in Mohammed than we incur upon first glance[1].
Legal Perspective
Seeing in a legal perspective one such sphere is where women are highly discriminate against. They have suffer for decades because of the existence of Personal Laws for different religions in our country. As India is a diverse country each having its own beliefs and faith. They are guide by their own set of rules in matters related to family affairs. Such as marriage, divorce, adoption, succession, etc. As a patriarchal culture, one big weakness in almost all personal laws is that; they seem to be skew against men and giving women an inferior and marginalize role in society. These personal laws contain certain provisions which tend to discriminate clearly against women in matters relating to marriage, succession, inheritance.
An example is that a Hindu woman has no right to raise a child of her own without her spouse’s consent. There are some troubling common clauses in any religion’s laws. Such problems and social inequality may be resolve through the creation of the Uniform Civil Code. Article 44 of the Constitution provides that “A State shall endeavor to guarantee citizens a uniform civil code throughout India”. The framers of the Indian Constitution have favor the implementation of the uniform civil code. As well as that of the Honorable Supreme Court of India has also state the dire need for the implementation of the uniform civil code in several landmark judgments; like the Shah Bano Case[2]
One may look at the aim of the Uniform Civil Code is to assimilate the Indian community into a holistic system. There the government codifies the law with the concept of minimal intervention. Enabling minority groups to maintain their existence. While at the same time eradicating needless, repressive and social evils and practices of society. With regard to the viability of the same procedure, it should be note that; laws were historically codified within the framework of Indian jurisprudence. With our criminal code united under penal law. As mention, a standardized civil code acts simply as a reference to adhere to all personal laws, and rules. A uniform code would coexist instead of removing the former.
Conclusion
Provisions such as discrimination against women in the area of marriage and inheritance, between Hindus, Muslims, and other faiths, or between two denominations of the same faith, or between two individuals of the same community who hold an unjustified place of power, and the abolition of long-term prejudice based on sexual identity, with mandatory and uniform protections such as registration of marriages instead of needing to say, an overarching consequence as in section 4 of the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955, marriage specific requirements for inter-caste marriages, the clear rules on inter-religious marriages and the status of the offspring even form part of the current legislation.
There are universal principles of religion, which remain permanent everywhere and now and then, and which encourage the effectiveness and glory of religion and any other practices, but they cannot justify and uphold such redundancies by sacrificing human rights, or by suffocating the dignity of the basic freedoms of citizens.
References:
[1] Bai Tahira v. Ali Hussain Fissalli Chowthi, 1979 AIR 362
[2] Mohd Ahmed Khan vs Shah Bano Begum 1985 SCR (3) 844
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