As Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami tabled the UCC bill in the assembly, Samajwadi Party MP ST Hasan said the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) was against the tenets of the Quran, the holy book of the Muslims.
“We won’t abide by it (UCC Bill) if it is against the ‘hidayat’ (instructions) given to Muslims in the Quran. We don’t have any issue if it is as per ‘hidayat’,” he said.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has also criticised the legislation.
Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahali, executive member, AIMPLB said a few communities would be exempted from it.
“Will there be uniformity in all the laws that are there when this (UCC) comes? No, there won’t be uniformity at all. How can there be uniformity when you have exempted a few communities from it? Our legal committee will study the draft and will decide accordingly,” he said.
The UCC bill was promised by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2022 Uttarakhand assembly elections.
When the bill becomes law, it will replace the personal religious laws that govern marriage, divorce, inheritance etc.
The bill is expected to sail through because of the clear BJP majority in the state assembly.
The Congress, meanwhile, said it was not against the UCC but the manner in which it was being tabled.
“We are not against it (Uniform Civil Code). The House is governed by the rules of conduct of business but the BJP is continuously ignoring it and wants to suppress the voice of the MLAs based on the strength of numbers. It is the right of the MLAs to express their views in the House, during Question Hour, whether they have a proposal under Rule 58 or under other rules, they have the right to raise their voices on various issues of the state in the Assembly,” said LoP Yashpal Arya.
Former Uttarakhand CM and Congress leader Harish Rawat said the state government and the chief minister, in their eagerness to pass the bill, are not following the rules.
“No one has the draft copy and they want an immediate discussion on it. The central government is using a sensitive state like Uttarakhand for tokenism, if they want to bring UCC, it should have been brought by the central government,” he said.
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