UNIFORM CIVIL CODE: NEEDS AND LIMITATIONS IN A MULTI-RELIGIOUS SOCIETY

AUTHOR – HARSHVARDHAN SINGH KHICHI, STUDENT AT NMIMS UNIVERSITY

BEST CITATION – HARSHVARDHAN SINGH KHICHI, UNIFORM CIVIL CODE: NEEDS AND LIMITATIONS IN A MULTI-RELIGIOUS SOCIETY, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 4 (2) OF 2024, PG. 1507-1511, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344

INTRODUCTION

India claims to be a secular country. The Uniform Civil Code (hereinafter “the Code”) has been embedded in Article 44 of the Indian Constitution, 1950 as a non-justiciable Directive Principle of State Policy. Even though almost 70 years have passed such a law is yet to be implemented in the country. Postcolonial India’s Uniform Civil Code’s idea seemed to follow the West incorporating a new revitalizing civilizing mission, a loud and clear call for unified nation-building and the attainment of legal modernity through top-down state-driven secularizing reforms.^[1] This was of course met with excitement and a positive appraisal from the Eurocentric and Europhilic modernists from around the globe. But from less than half a century later and to date there has been the birth of many state laws but no Uniform Civil Code. The present write-up concentrates on the crucial changes that have taken place in the religious legal system concerning the Code. It shall also discuss the needs and limitations of the Code in the religious Cext.

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^[1]  Werner Menski, The Uniform Civil Code Debate in Indian Law: New Developments and Changing Agenda, 9 GERMAN L.J. 211 (2008).