PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/ Dehradun
The draft of the Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand is becoming a model for other States. After Gujarat, the eastern State of Assam has also moved ahead on implementation of UCC.
The Himanta Biswa Sarma government tabled the ‘Uniform Civil Code, Assam bill -2026’ in the State assembly on Monday. The bill will be taken up for discussion and passage on Wednesday. Following the footsteps of Uttarakhand, the Assam government has also excluded the scheduled tribes (ST) from the purview of the UCC bill.
Pertinently, Uttarakhand created a history on February 27, 2025 when it implemented the UCC to become the first State in the country to have a civil code aimed at eliminating legal discrimination based on caste, religion or gender. UCC draws its strength from the article 44 of Indian Constitution under the Directive Principles of State Policy and stipulates that the ‘State shall endeavour to have a Uniform Civil Code for all its citizens throughout the territory of India.
Though the idea of UCC is very old, it started taking concrete shape in February 2022 when just days ahead of the Vidhan Sabha elections, the CM of Uttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami announced that if re-elected, the BJP government would implement the UCC in Uttarakhand.
After winning the Vidhan Sabha elections, Dhami ensured that the UCC was on the agenda of the first meeting of his cabinet. Moving ahead, the Uttarakhand government constituted a five-member expert committee on May 27, 2022, to prepare the draft of the UCC. The committee held interactions and took suggestions from 2.35 lakh individuals and, for about one and a half years, discussed the UCC in detail with the Central Law Commission before starting work on preparing the draft of the UCC. The final draft, a comprehensive document spanning four parts and 1,700 pages, was submitted to Dhami by the head of the expert committee, Justice Rajana Prasad Desai, on February 2, 2024.
The UCC bill was tabled in the State Assembly on February 6 and on February 7, 2024, it was passed by the Assembly by a voice vote. After its passage the President of India, Droupadi Murmu gave her approval to the UCC bill on March 11, 2024. The Dhami government then constituted a rules and regulation committee to prepare the rules of UCC and the UCC was finally implemented in the State on February 27, 2025. Taking a cue from Uttarakhand, the Gujarat government introduced the UCC bill in its assembly on March 24, 2026 and after its passage it became the second State to have the UCC.
