By Naysa Shrivastava
On 27 January, Monday, Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, implemented the
Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the state. The code details like rules and guidelines were also
released, along with an online portal committed to the compulsory registration for marriages,
live-in relationships and divorces. Uttarakhand became the first state to enforce it post-
independence.
The UCC is made to provide equality as it makes sure that people from all castes, communities
and religions will follow the same set of rules and regulations. This will include everything from
marriage, divorce to property rights, inheritance,etc. CM Pushkar is the first person to enroll for
UCC.
Dhami in his speech said that registration for couples in live-in relationships is not an invasion of
privacy because it is meant to protect them. He mentioned, “ Many live-in relationships have
witnessed violence and many times murders also took place.” He pointed towards the Aftab-
Shraddha Walker case and emphasised that this type of incident will not happen again after
UCC.
This will end the discrimination against women and give more rights to the children.” Dhami
said. UCC rules were created by Shatrughan Singh, chairperson of the committee and he claimed
that B.R Ambedkar had promoted these laws. “ On the online portal, we have given open access
data and restricted data. In the open access, the number of registrations will be visible, data
including the details of an individual’s faith won’t be accessible.” Singh mentioned.
“The implementation is not to cause harm to any religion but to terminate evil or wrong doings.
From today, women of every religion will have equal rights. He added, “Uniform Civil Code will
end the practices of halala, child marriage, polygamy, triple talaq, etc. We have Article 342,
under which Schedule Tribes are kept. This is rolled out for women empowerment and it will
promote equal rights to everyone.”