Uniform Civil Code Or Codified Personal Law?

In the background of a bunch of writ petitions filed before the Supreme Court, by some Muslim women’s organizations and individual victims, challenging the regressive and arbitrary practices of triple talaq, halala and polygamy among India’s Muslims, the Law Commission has come out with a questionnaire on the viability of a uniform civil code. The timing of the release of this questionnaire, close on the heels of the Union of India’s categorical stand against these arbitrary and unconstitutional...

Reforming the Evidence Act or Re-inventing Caste System?

The recent statement of Abhay Bhardwaj, a lawyer from Gujarat, recently appointed as a part-time member to the Law Commission of India, must be seen as a retrograde to the legal fraternity. Mr. Bhardwaj has called the 144-year-old Indian Evidence Act, 1872 as “outdated”, while mooting the idea of its reformation “along the lines of millennia-old Vedas and shastras”. As per him, such reformation of the Act would “usher in an era of positivity in judiciary”. He has also been quoted as saying:“The...

Gang Rape Accused’s SC Acquittal Raises Questions On Rape, Prostitution & Consent

Many years ago, a bus I was traveling in hit a scooterist and badly injured him, maiming him for life. I was one of those who accompanied him to the hospital. I was asked to attend a court hearing about five years later in a case filed by the police in the said accident case. I could only vaguely remember the place where it had occurred and other details of the chronology of events of that day from the time I alighted from the bus till his relatives had turned up at the hospital. If I was asked...

(Over?) Correction Of Past Injustices

Recently a decade long controversy was laid to rest by the Apex Court. This controversy had led to unnecessary litigations and contributed to the major docket explosion. The question was regarding retrospective implementation of the Sec 6 of Hindu Succession Act, 1956 as it was amended by Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, which elevated the status of the daughter from being mere beneficiary of a joint family property to the level of coparcener. Without any doubt it is a progressive step...

The Uninformed Debate Over The Uniform Civil Code

The Uniform Civil Code “debate” can hardly be described as one. It is a debate where even those in favour of it have not been able to come up with a clear and coherent definition of what they mean by the “Uniform Civil Code”. Even those proposing seem to have very different ideas as to what a Uniform Civil Code is. As I pointed out in a recent article, a UCC can be anything from a comprehensive, all encompassing complete code governing every aspect of personal laws, abolishing all religious and...

Uniform Civil Code

The issue of a uniform civil code has recently been raised. I am fully in support of a uniform civil code.Article 44 of the Indian Constitution states : " The state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India ". No doubt Article 44 is in the Directive Principles, and not the Fundamental Rights of our Constitution, but Article 37 states :"The provisions contained in this Part shall not be enforceable in any court, but the principles therein...

How Embedded Patriarchy Has Historically Denied Justice to Women

In a Judgment [Narendra vs. K.Meena] by Justice Anil Dave and Justice Nageshwar Rao, the Supreme Court has stated that separating a Hindu husband from his parents amounts to ‘cruelty’.The Judgment suggested that “a son, brought up and given education by his parents, has a moral and legal obligation to take care and maintain the parents, when they become old and when they have either no income or have a meager income”. The bench not even once mentioned the wife’s parents, let alone ponder over...

Declassifying The Uniform Civil Code

“Everything has been said already, but as no one listens, we must always begin again.” - Andre GideArt. 44 of the Constitution of India says “ The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.”The Supreme Court in Mohd. Ahmad Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, observed that the State should take initiative in making a uniform civil code. In Sarla Mudgal v. U.O.I., Kuldip Singh J., while delivering the judgment remarked, “When more than 80% of the...

Time To Revamp The Parole System In India?

Many aspersions have been cast on the parole system in India and it continues to face intense debate and antagonism. Balancing individual freedom and larger social interests is the nucleus of legal policy making and an inextricable component of justice. The Positivist School of thought believes in the power of rehabilitation while the Classical approach condemns the risk associated with the parole system. The parole system should lay the building blocks for the final release of the prisoner and...

Role Of A Magistrate In A Criminal Investigation

A young bank official named Joseph is arrested by two policemen one fine morning, without even being informed why. Joseph is outraged.Till his death, Joseph does not get to know what is he being tried for. Joseph is the protagonist of Franz Kafka’s seminal work ‘The Trial’, which is the story of Joseph's case, his trial and tribulations with : the invisible Law, absent judge, opaque court processes, police excesses and the high-handedness of our criminal justice system. He dies a year later at...

Strange Ideas Of Justice Dave

The ideas of Justice Anil Dave, the second senior most judge in the Supreme Court are, to say the least, strange.Consider the following: He gave a public statement that the Gita should be made compulsory in all schools in India. Now the Gita is perceived by most Muslims and some other non Hindu communities as a Hindu religious book. How can it be forcibly taught to non Hindus in a secular country? And this statement is being made by a person who has taken an oath to uphold our secular...

Women As Respondents Under The Domestic Violence Act: Critiquing The SC Decision In Harsora V. Harsora

Last week, in Hiral Harsora v. Kusum Harsora, the Supreme Court held that Section 2(q) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (“DV Act”), is unconstitutional to the extent that it defines “respondents” under the Act to only include “adult males.” The impugned section had permitted aggrieved persons under the Act to file a case only against adult male relatives with whom the aggrieved person was in a domestic relationship, and against the relatives (male and female) of one’s...