Dehradun (IANS). The draft of the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code has been prepared by the expert committee. The committee announced during a press conference in Delhi that the draft has been prepared and will be submitted to the state government soon. The committee has prepared the draft on the basis of 2 lakh 31 thousand suggestions.
Justice (retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai, chairperson of the committee, held a press conference after the Uniform Civil Code was drafted for Uttarakhand. Ranjana Desai said that the Law Commission is already considering working on this issue. The report of the expert committee along with the draft code will be printed soon and submitted to the Uttarakhand government.
Custom practice in Uttarakhand has also been given a place in it. Most importantly, the committee has also studied the practice being followed in different states of the country. Similarly, there are laws like this in foreign countries, that was also studied.
Justice Ranjana Desai said that the committee has taken the opinion of politicians, ministers, legislators and general public of Uttarakhand. Only after that the draft of the Uniform Civil Code has been prepared.
Earlier on June 2, Justice Ranjana Desai and members of the committee that drafted the UCC for Uttarakhand had met Law Commission Chairman Justice (Retd) Rituraj Awasthi and members KT Sankaran, Anand Paliwal and DP Verma. At that time Justice Ranjana Desai had said that the Law Commission is considering working on this issue. The subcommittee itself held 143 meetings in the state. The committee held 63 meetings, 20,000 people have also been met. And, their suggestions have been taken.
Please tell that on May 27, 2022, the state government had issued a notification for the formation of the committee. On June 30, 2023, the committee has completed the work of making the draft. The state government will get the draft soon. As you are aware, the Government had constituted an Expert Committee to examine the various existing laws regulating personal civil affairs of the residents of Uttarakhand.
The notification in this regard was issued on 27th May 2022 and the terms of reference were notified on 10th June 2022. The first meeting of the committee was held on 4 July 2022. Since then the committee has met 63 times. A sub-committee was constituted last year to elicit public opinion by inviting written submissions as well as organizing public dialogue programmes. The sub-committee started its public outreach program from the border tribal village Mana and visited 40 different places covering all the districts of the state, culminating in a public discussion on 14 June 2023 in Delhi.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami says that the committee, taking the draft of the UCC, went among the people and worked for more than a year. The committee spoke to more than 2 lakh people, several stakeholders, organizations and intellectuals. The draft will be received by the government soon. After this the government will take further action. The state also has the support of the central government.
