JOIN USSupreme Court to consider plea for uniform code for maintenance of family
The Supreme Court on Friday decided to consider a plea to frame a uniform and common code for maintenance for wife, children and aged parents to overcome existing restrictions, conditions and discrepancies in the different personal laws.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and J K Maheshwari tagged the petition, filed by advocate Sneha Kalita on behalf of BJP leader Shazia Ilmi, along with a similar pending plea by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.
Senior advocate Garima Prasad and advocate Kalita appeared for the petitioner, who sought uniform grounds for maintenance irrespective of personal laws in case of Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Parsi, as a matter of human rights and fundamental rights enshrined in the Article 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution and also States' responsibility under Article 44 of the Constitution and International Conventions.
The plea contended there is an urgent need in the present scenario to address this for the promotion of secularism. The Law Commission can take this further through its monitoring and provide certain guidelines securing a gender and religion neutral Uniform Civil Code.
In its support, the plea relied upon September 13, 2019 judgement of the top court in case of 'Jose Paulo Coutinho vs Maria Luiza Valentina Pereira' (2019) when it once again reiterated the need of uniform civil code as per Article 44 of the Constitution and stated that there has been no attempt to frame a Uniform Civil code applicable to all citizens of the country despite exhortations of this court in the case of 'Md Ahmed Khan vs Shah Bano Begum' (1985) and 'Sarla Mudgal vs Union of India' (1995).