Interplay between The Uniform Civil Code and the Reform of Religious Personal Laws

Aryan Tulsyan

Student of Jindal Global Law School.

Best Citation – Aryan Tulsyan, Interplay between The Uniform Civil Code and the Reform of Religious Personal Laws, 1 ILE HRLR 27, 2022

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the possibility of the implementation of a Uniform Civil Code in India, and how could the reform of religious personal laws be modelled into a feasible enactment of a UCC. The paper is introduced in Chapter 1, where an explanation of the UCC is provided and the thesis is briefly discussed. In Chapter 2, the Constituent Assembly Debates on the UCC are studied closely, and the opinions of Ambedkar and other members are analysed for the purpose of contextualising the issue. In Chapter 3, the UCC, as proposed by the BJP is discussed, as this is the most recent political model available, and in Chapter 4 the various criticisms of the UCC is explained. Chapter 5 serves the purpose of understanding the way in which the judiciary would be capable of enacting a UCC, and also to study the judgements until now which demonstrate the way in which the judiciary has been successful in reforming religious personal laws for the sake of a UCC. Chapter 6 analyses the findings in Chapter 5 and talks about a probable model of a feasible modern UCC, and the way it could be enacted. The paper concludes its arguments with Chapter 7 and suggestions are provided. The paper succeeds in understanding how the UCC engages and interacts with the reform of religious personal laws, and how the latter could be a manifestation of the former.

Keywords: UCC, religious laws, personal laws, reform, BJP, Constitution, Constituent Assembly Debates, Supreme Court.