Why In News?

The Rajasthan Cabinet cleared the Rajasthan Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill, 2026, positioning the state to become the fifth state to move toward a UCC.

What is a Uniform Civil Code?

It is a proposed legal framework that aims to replace the distinct personal laws of various religious communities with a single, uniform set of laws applicable to all citizens, regardless of their religion, gender, or sexual orientation.  

Key Areas Covered by a UCC

A Uniform Civil Code addresses civil and personal matters. It does not interfere with freedom of religion or religious rituals. It unifies regulations across four core areas: 

  • Marriage: Standardising the legal age for marriage, consent requirements, and prohibition of polygamy across all communities.

  • Divorce: Establishing uniform grounds, legal procedures, and rights for dissolution of marriage.

  • Maintenance and Alimony: Ensuring equal financial protection and support for dependent spouses and children post-divorce.

  • Inheritance, Succession, and Adoption: Creating equal rights for daughters, sons, and spouses in property inheritance, and unifying the legal framework for adopting children. 

Constitutional Status in India

  • Article 44: Within Part IV (Directive Principles of State Policy), Article 44 states that "The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India."  

  • Non-Justiciable: Because it is a Directive Principle, it is fundamental to the governance of the country but is not enforceable by courts. The responsibility to implement it lies with the legislature. 

  • Legislative Jurisdiction: Personal laws fall under the Concurrent List (Entry 5) of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution; Both the Parliament and State Legislatures have the power to pass laws regarding marriage, divorce, and succession.  

Key Provisions of the Rajasthan UCC Bill 2026

Ban on Polygamy: The proposed legislation enforces a strict, state-wide prohibition on bigamy and polygamy across all applicable communities.  

Mandatory Marriage & Divorce Registration: Marriages must be legally registered within 60 days of solemnisation. While a delay does not render the marriage invalid, it will attract a fine of up to ₹10,000, escalating to ₹25,000 for failing to comply with notices. 

Regulation of Live-in Relationships: The Bill mandates the formal registration or written intimation of both the commencement and termination of live-in relationships to prevent exploitation.

Equal Inheritance Rights: It guarantees equal property rights for sons and daughters across all religions, overriding community-specific customary personal laws. Furthermore, children born out of live-in relationships hold equal inheritance rights equivalent to those born in wedlock.

Preservation of Religious Rituals: The Bill ensures that communities retain full autonomy to solemnise marriages according to their traditional religious rituals (e.g., Nikah, Saptapadi, Anand Karaj, or Holy Union). 

Major Exemptions

  • Scheduled Tribes (STs) Excluded: The provisions of the UCC will not apply to Scheduled Tribes or classes whose customary rights are constitutionally protected under the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. 

 

Arguments in Favour of UCC

Arguments Against UCC

Gender Justice & Equality

Promotes Gender Justice: Eliminates discriminatory practices in traditional personal laws (e.g., unequal inheritance, polygamy, unilateral divorce) to ensure equal rights for women across all religions.

Perceived Legal Uniformity Over Equality: Critics argue that uniform rules do not automatically guarantee substantive equality, and reforms could be achieved by modifying individual personal laws instead of forcing a singular code.

Constitutional Mandate

Fulfills Article 44: Implements the explicit constitutional directive under the Directive Principles of State Policy (Part IV), which mandates the state to secure a uniform civil code for all citizens.

Conflicts with Freedom of Religion: Opponents argue it violates Article 25 (Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion) and Article 26 of the Constitution.

National Integration

Fosters National Unity: Subsidises fractured legal identities by bringing all citizens under a common civil framework, reducing identity politics based on religious legal exemptions.

Threat to Multiculturalism: Seen as a threat to India's pluralistic fabric. Critics argue true secularism requires protecting diversity rather than imposing absolute legal homogeneity.

Legal Simplification

Simplifies the Judicial System: Replaces overlapping, complex, and highly fragmented religious laws with a streamlined, single system, making administration cleaner and reducing judicial pendency.

Administrative & Legal Chaos: The intersection of overlapping state laws (like Uttarakhand, Gujarat, and Rajasthan UCCs) with federal jurisdictions risks causing massive legal conflicts and confusion.

Social Efficacy & Morality

Codifies Evolving Social Realities: Brings informal arrangements (like mandatory live-in relationship registration under state-specific bills) under state supervision to prevent exploitation.

State Overreach into Privacy: Mandates like the 30-day compulsory registration of live-in relationships are criticized as excessive state surveillance that severely impedes personal liberty.

Protection of Minorities

Protects Vulnerable Subgroups: Ensures that women, children, and dissenting individuals within minority communities enjoy the exact same constitutional protections as the majority.

Fear of Majoritarian Imposition: Minorities often perceive the code as an imposition of majoritarian customs, eroding their distinct cultural identity and customary protections.

Major Challenges In Implementing UCC

Religious diversity: A common civil framework must reconcile different rules on marriage, divorce, adoption and succession without making uniformity synonymous with cultural assimilation.

Tribal autonomy: UCC design must account for constitutionally protected tribal customs and special protections; therefore, a uniform framework cannot simply apply identically across all communities. 

Personal-law transition: Replacing multiple personal-law regimes requires clear rules on existing marriages, inheritance claims, customary practices and pending disputes. 

Uniformity vs pluralism: Article 44 directs the State towards a UCC, while Articles 25–29 protect religious and cultural freedoms; the policy challenge is therefore harmonisation without constitutional exclusion. 

Administrative capacity: Uttarakhand's experience shows that UCC implementation requires digital registration, verification, designated officers and interoperable records rather than merely enacting legislation. 

Privacy concerns: Uttarakhand's UCC portal collects identity, marital-status, address and uploaded documents, making data protection and restricted access important implementation safeguards. 

Social legitimacy: The 22nd Law Commission reopened UCC consultation in 2023, indicating that such reform requires structured stakeholder engagement rather than only legislative majorities. 

Way Forward

Start with rights-based harmonisation: Focus first on equality, dignity, gender justice and individual autonomy rather than imposing identical religious practices. 

Use evidence from Uttarakhand: Its UCC framework covers marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption and live-in relationships, offering a real administrative test for future reforms.

Build registration capacity before expansion: Uttarakhand's portal currently records 4.58 lakh marriage registrations and 96 live-in registrations, demonstrating the scale of administrative infrastructure required. 

Protect legitimate customs through defined safeguards: Instead of blanket exemptions, legislation should clearly identify constitutionally protected customary practices and specify where equality-based civil standards prevail. 

Institutionalise consultation: The Law Commission's 2023 consultation route provides a precedent for engaging religious groups, tribal representatives, women’s organisations, legal experts and civil society before major codification. 

Keep implementation non-discriminatory: Rules should use objective civil criteria, transparent procedures and appeal mechanisms so that uniformity does not translate into selective enforcement.

Protect privacy alongside transparency: Digital UCC systems should follow data minimisation, purpose limitation, secure authentication and restricted access because family-law records contain highly sensitive personal information. 

Conclusion

Article 44 provides the constitutional direction, but Articles 25–29 establish the pluralist boundary. Therefore, a durable UCC should pursue equal civil rights without converting legitimate cultural diversity into legal discrimination.

Source: THEHINDU

PRACTICE QUESTION

Q. The trend of state-level Uniform Civil Codes raises important questions of constitutional governance and national integration. Discuss. (150 words)