Gujarat panel on UCC pays 'courtesy visit' to CM Bhupendra Patel days after HC rejects petition against committee

Ahmedabad: The five-member committee preparing the draft of Uniform Civil Code (UCC) met with Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel and other state ministers in Gandhinagar on Tuesday.

The government said that it was a "courtesy meeting" during which the committee, headed by former Supreme Court justice Ranjana Desai, also shared details of its work.

On February 4, the state government had announced the constitution of the committee "to examine the need for a uniform civil code in Gujarat and draft the law."

The committee was tasked "to assess the need for implementing Uniform Civil Code in Gujarat and then, based on the assessed need, suggest the contours of such a law. In the process, the committee would be reviewing the existing laws relating to regulation of personal civil matters of the residents of Gujarat."

The government has extended the period of the committee twice and it is expected to submit its report by the end of this month when its extension will be over.

Apart from former justice Desai, retired IAS C L Meena, advocate R C Kodekar, Advocate, ex vice-chancellor of Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Dakshesh Thakar and social activist Gitaben Shroff are its members.

The "courtesy meeting" comes days after Gujarat High Court dismissed a petition seeking reconstitution of the committee with members "having knowledge and experience in law." The petitioner also sought direction to state for "adopting a consultative process involving all religious and cultural communities before any move to the Uniform Civil Code."

The petitioner, Abdul Vahab Mohammed Shabbir Sopariwala, said the object of the committee was to see the need of implementing UCC covering many personal laws like Hindu Law, Muslim Law, among others.

The petition also raised the issue of not having any representation in the committee from Muslim, Christian, Parsi, Sikh, among other minority communities.

The state government opposed the petition stating that the constitution of the committee under Article 162 was "purely an administrative action and has nothing to do with any statutory duty of the State Government."

The government argued that there was no legal requirement prescribed by any statute for how such a committee can be constituted."

Justice Niral R Mehta accepted the argument of the state while dismissing the petition. The judgement stated, "...this Court is of the firm opinion that once the Committee has been constituted purely by executive order under Article 162 of the Constitution of India, in absence of any statutory provisions to the contrary, selection of particular members for constitution of Committee would be within the absolute domain of the State Government and thereby, it is perfectly justified for the State authorities to select the members of the Committee..."

The Bhupendra Patel-led Gujarat government is following the Uttarakhand government's implementation of UCC as its precedent. In January this year, the Himalayan state became the first one to adopt the UCC.