The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday said that it will initiate the process of implementing the Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand if voted to power again. Announcing this today via a video message, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that the move is aimed at protecting the cultural-spiritual heritage of Uttarakhand and will provide an equal law for all citizens, regardless of the religion they believe in.
Goa, meanwhile, already has a civil code that lays out a set of civil laws governing the residents of Goa and Damon. The Goa Civil Code was introduced after Portuguese Goa and Damon were elevated from being mere colonies to the status of a provincial ultramarine (overseas possession) in 1869 AD.
The Goa Civil Code however is not entirely the same as a uniform civil code proposed by the BJP. While “uniform” means the uniformity of all despite being from any religion, race, caste, sex, and age, some laws in Goa code makes a clear distinction between common civil code and uniform civil code.
The Goa Civil Code prohibits bigamy – which the code defines as the offense of marrying someone while already married to another person – for all other religion except for Hindus. Hindu men thus have the right to bigamy under specific circumstances mentioned in Codes of Usages and Customs of Gentile Hindus of Goa (if the wife fails to deliver a child by the age of 25, or if she fails to deliver a male child by the age of 30). Such a privilege being given particularly to men of the Hindu religion and prohibited for men of other religions is clearly not valid to be a part of a uniform civil code.
At an inauguration ceremony of a new Bombay High Court building at Goa in March 2021, former Chief Justice of India Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde observed, “Goa has what the Constitution framers envisaged for India – a Uniform Civil Code. And I have had the great privilege of administering justice under that code…”
The Special Marriage Act, enacted to govern the marriages of two people from different religions, plays out differently in Goa. Muslim men, who have their marriages registered in Goa, cannot practice polygamy. Also, there is no provision for a verbal divorce.
However, the provision lacks uniformity between Catholic and non-Catholic marriages. First, the intent of marriage is recorded by the would-be spouses before the civil registration authorities and after two weeks, a marriage deed is signed. For Catholics, signature in churches are considered sufficient for civil registration. Many women are not aware that the UCC requires a second confirmation through signatures, and so, when a dispute arises, their marriages are found invalid. Many cases of bigamy through such frauds have been reported, according to an Indian Express report.
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