New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday sought a comprehensive response within three weeks from the Centre on a batch of petitions seeking a direction to the government to frame religion and gender-neutral uniform laws for divorce, adoption, guardianship, succession, inheritance, maintenance, marriage age, and alimony. The top court said whether such a direction in the form of a writ of mandamus can be issued to the legislature for framing laws would be a basic question.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat also asked lawyer petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay to be fair to the court and provide the details of similar petitions filed by him on these issues. Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing for an intervenor, alleged that the PIL petitioner did not inform the court about filing a similar petition.
He alleged that a PIL seeking implementation of a uniform civil code (UCC) was filed by the same petitioner which was withdrawn later and then another petition seeking similar reliefs was filed. Tushar Mehta, the learned Solicitor General, has been granted three weeks time for putting a comprehensive response indicating the stand of the Centre with respect to the issues raised in this batch of petitions, the bench said in its order.