Uniform Civil Code Quotes

I have also a feeling that despite my deepest respect for the life and work of Jawaharlal Nehru, it was a grave error to codify Hindu laws instead of having a uniform civil code. If we have one criminal law for all the citizens of the Republic of India and one law in respect of Income Tax, transfer of property etc.., there is no reason to have separate codes for the Hindus and the Muslims,. All these distortions are the products of our not being able to think clearly about our past, present and future

By 2200 B.C.E., five hundred years before Hammurabi issued his law code in Babylon, the civilization of the Indus Valley was a flourishing urban world of small brick houses and straight narrow streets, clean, efficient, and uniform, ruled by all-powerful theocrats whose temples were the very cities themselves.14

The most famous ruler of this period was Hammurabi, who lived circa 1810–1750 BCE. He is best known for the Code of Hammurabi—a set of laws inscribed on a black basalt pillar that now stands in the Louvre Museum. Hammurabi’s code specifies the rate of interest on silver at 20% and on barley at 33⅓%. What is most important about the code is not what is says but what it represents. The code is a uniform legal framework for the entire Babylonian empire. It covered everything from criminal law to family law, commercial practice to property rights. It details a range of punishments for transgressions, methods of dispute resolution, and attributions of fault for various offenses. It specifies the roles of judge, jury, witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants. It recognizes and elaborates the rights of ownership of property, including rights to lease and rights of eminent domain. It specifies the role of the written document in a contractual obligation, the necessity of receipts, and what should be done if they do not exist. It specifies legal tender. It describes the obligations of merchants, brokers, and agents and their fiduciary duties and limits to their liabilities in case of attack or theft. It places limits on the term of debt indenture (three years). In short, it creates a comprehensive, uniform framework for commerce.

Attention must be invited to Nehru’s article written in the Hindustan Times on 20 October 1940 on the subject of ‘the content of social welfare’. Nehru had, inter alia, stated therein: ‘It seems to me that a uniform civil code for the whole of India is essential.

Without a Uniform Civil Code, labelling India be Secular nation is just a illusion. Uniform Civil Code is necessary for India so that t same laws r valid for every citizen without taking religion into consideration.

Shah Bano, a sixty-two-year-old Muslim mother of five from Indore, had been divorced by her husband in 1978. She filed a criminal suit in the Supreme Court, in which she won the right to alimony from her husband. This was a landmark secular judgment in which the court decided that maintenance was payable even if it were in conflict with Muslim personal law—Sharia. India seemed to be moving towards a uniform civil code—one that did not distinguish between Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Sikh.