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Article 44, placed among the Directive Principles of State Policy, provides:

“The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.”

A Uniform Civil Code (UCC) refers to a single, common set of civil laws, governing matters such as marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption, guardianship and succession, that would apply equally to all citizens regardless of their religion, in place of the distinct religion-based personal laws (Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Parsi, and others) that currently govern these matters in India.

Historical Background

During British rule, the colonial administration largely refrained from codifying or interfering with religious personal laws relating to family matters, while it did codify areas such as crime, contract and evidence uniformly across communities. This left a patchwork of religion-specific personal laws intact at independence. When the Constitution was being framed, the idea of a uniform civil code was debated extensively in the Constituent Assembly. Members from minority communities, particularly Muslim members, strongly opposed making it an enforceable, immediate obligation, apprehending interference with religious freedom and cultural identity. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar clarified that Article 44 did not intend to impose a UCC forcibly or immediately; rather, it envisaged a gradual, voluntary movement towards a common code as social conditions evolved. As a compromise, the UCC was placed among the non-justiciable Directive Principles in Part IV rather than being made a Fundamental Right or an immediate legislative mandate.

Rationale For a Uniform Civil Code

Advocates of a UCC argue that it would advance gender justice, since many existing personal laws, across religions, have historically disadvantaged women in matters of inheritance, maintenance, divorce and guardianship. It is also argued that a UCC would promote national integration and strengthen the secular fabric of the Constitution by treating citizens as equal before civil law regardless of religious identity, and would eliminate the anomaly of forum-shopping between personal law regimes, such as conversion undertaken solely to obtain a legal advantage unavailable under one’s original personal law.

Challenges and Objections

Opponents caution that a UCC could be perceived as majoritarian imposition, undermining the freedom of religion guaranteed under Articles 25 and 26 and the cultural and educational rights of minorities under Articles 29 and 30. Given India’s religious and cultural diversity, critics argue that any code should be evolved through broad consultation and gradual reform of individual personal laws rather than a single imposed code, and that personal law itself falls within the Concurrent List, raising additional questions about the respective roles of Parliament and State Legislatures in enacting it.

Relationship with Articles 25 and 26

Courts have consistently drawn a distinction between religious practices that are protected under Article 25 and secular activities associated with religion, including many aspects of personal law, which the State may regulate or reform under Article 25(2)(a) without infringing the essential religious practices doctrine. This distinction underlies the judiciary’s approach in most of the case law discussed below, where personal law provisions have been tested against Articles 14 and 15 rather than treated as absolutely immune under Article 25.

Important Case Laws

  1. Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum (1985) – In this case, a 73-year-old Muslim woman, divorced by her husband through triple talaq, sought maintenance under the secular provision of Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, after her former husband stopped paying her the amount fixed under Muslim personal law. The Supreme Court held that Section 125 CrPC, being a secular provision applicable to all citizens regardless of religion, entitled her to maintenance beyond the iddat period, and expressly recommended that the government take steps towards implementing Article 44 to bring about a common civil code. The judgment triggered significant political controversy, and Parliament subsequently enacted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, which diluted the effect of the ruling for Muslim women specifically, though later judicial interpretation of that Act substantially restored the practical effect of the Shah Bano decision.
  2. Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India (1995) – In this case, Hindu husbands, already married under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, converted to Islam solely to solemnise a second marriage without obtaining a divorce from their first wife, exploiting the absence of a monogamy requirement under Muslim personal law. The Supreme Court held that such a conversion, undertaken purely to circumvent the monogamy mandate of the Hindu Marriage Act, did not dissolve the first marriage, and that the second marriage amounted to bigamy, punishable under Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code. The Court strongly urged the government to secure a uniform civil code under Article 44, observing that a common code would help end the practice of using conversion as a device to evade personal law obligations and would foster national integration.
  3. Lily Thomas v. Union of India (2000) – In this case, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the position taken in Sarla Mudgal, clarifying that its earlier ruling did not amount to an attack on any particular religion, but was aimed solely at preventing the misuse of religious conversion as a tool to bypass a valid, subsisting marriage and escape criminal liability for bigamy.
  4. Ahmedabad Women Action Group (AWAG) v. Union of India (1997) – In this case, petitioners challenged several discriminatory provisions across various religious personal laws as violative of Articles 14 and 15. The Supreme Court declined to enter into the validity of personal laws on this ground, holding that issues of such wide-ranging social and religious sensitivity, involving matters of State policy, were more appropriately addressed by the legislature than through judicial intervention.
  5. John Vallamattom v. Union of India (2003) – In this case, a Christian priest challenged Section 118 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, which imposed onerous restrictions on a Christian's right to bequeath property for religious or charitable purposes, restrictions not applicable to other communities. The Supreme Court struck down Section 118 as discriminatory and violative of Article 14, and, while doing so, once again reiterated its concern that the continued absence of a uniform civil code, more than five decades after the Constitution came into force, was regrettable, and expressed hope that the State would take meaningful steps towards Article 44.
  6. Jose Paulo Coutinho v. Maria Luiza Valentina Pereira (2019) – In this case, concerning succession to property in Goa, the Supreme Court observed that Goa already possesses its own uniform civil code, inherited from the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867, under which every Goan, irrespective of religion, is governed by the same rules of marriage, divorce and succession. The Court described this as a model that could inform the rest of the country, and once again urged the Union Government to work towards implementing Article 44.

Recent Developments

In 2024, Uttarakhand became the first Indian State to enact its own Uniform Civil Code, the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code Act, 2024, bringing marriage, divorce, succession and live-in relationships for most residents of the State under a common set of rules, with certain exemptions for Scheduled Tribes. The Twenty-Second Law Commission of India has also been examining the question of a uniform civil code afresh, following the Twenty-First Law Commission’s 2018 consultation paper, which had concluded that a UCC was “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage” and instead recommended codifying and reforming discriminatory aspects within each personal law regime.

Conclusion

The question of a uniform civil code illustrates the continuing tension between Article 44’s directive towards legal uniformity and the constitutional guarantees of religious and cultural freedom under Articles 25, 26, 29 and 30. While the judiciary has repeatedly urged the political branches to move towards Article 44, from Shah Bano through Sarla Mudgal to John Vallamattom and Jose Paulo Coutinho, courts have consistently treated the actual framing and implementation of a uniform civil code as a matter for the legislature rather than something to be judicially imposed, leaving it, even today, as one of the significant unfulfilled Directive Principles of the Constitution.