Dehradun: The Uttarakhand government on Saturday set up a nine-member committee to prepare the draft rules for implementing the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) bill that was passed in the Assembly earlier this week.
The committee headed by retired chief secretary Shatrughan Singh has been entrusted to prepare a set of draft rules for better implementation of the provisions of the UCC bill. The draft rules will include all the procedures, competent level authorities and facts related to smooth implementation of the code.
The committee comprises bureaucrats from various departments including law, personnel and administrative reforms, panchayat, urban development and finance, deputy inspector general of police Varinderjit Singh, Doon University Vice Chancellor Surekha Dangwal and social worker Manu Gaur, states a notification issued by special secretary Ridhim Aggarwal.
The UCC bill was passed at a two-day special session in the Assembly on February 8 making Uttarakhand the first state after independence to adopt UCC. After getting approval from the Governor and President, UCC will be enacted as a law in Uttarakhand. In order to ensure that the law is enacted properly, the state government has set up the nine-member committee.
UCC lays down a common law on marriage, divorce, land property and inheritance for citizens irrespective of their religion. The Scheduled Tribes have been left out of UCC's purview.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has labelled the code a 'model' that other states can emulate while Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that UCC is a constitutional agenda that Congress had ignored for its appeasement politics. Shah said that UCC is BJP's agenda since the days of Jana Sangh and it has held on to it.
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