Uttarakhand 2024: The First State Code

In one line

A State has done what Parliament never did, and the code it produced excludes the Scheduled Tribes, requires live-in couples to register with the State, and was itself amended within two years.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Uniform Civil Code, Uttarakhand, 2024, Act No. 3 of 2024, was passed by the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly and assented to by the PRESIDENT on 11 March 2024, and was brought into force on 27 JANUARY 2025 by a notification under section 1(2). Its long title is "An Act to govern and regulate the laws relating to marriage and divorce, succession, live-in relationships, and matters related thereto". Section 2 provides that nothing in the Code shall apply to members of any Scheduled Tribe within article 366(25) read with article 342, or to persons whose customary rights are protected under Part XXI. Part 3, sections 378 to 389, makes it obligatory for partners to a live-in relationship within the State to submit a statement to the Registrar, who must forward it to the police, and creates offences for failing to do so. It was amended by Uttarakhand Act No. 2 of 2026, assented on 6 April 2026.

How a State could do this at all

Entry 5 of the Concurrent List covers marriage and divorce; infants and minors; adoption; wills, intestacy and succession; joint family and partition; and all matters in respect of which parties in judicial proceedings were immediately before the commencement of the Constitution subject to their personal law.

Article 246(2) gives a State Legislature power to make laws with respect to any matter in the Concurrent List, subject to Parliament's power. So a State may legislate a civil code for itself.

Article 254 supplies the limit. Where a State law is repugnant to a law of Parliament on a Concurrent List matter, the parliamentary law prevails and the State law is void to the extent of the repugnancy, UNLESS the State law has been reserved for and received the ASSENT OF THE PRESIDENT, in which case it prevails in that State.

Which is why the assent matters. The Act was assented to by the President on 11 March 2024. That is the mechanism by which a State code can displace the central personal law statutes within the State, and it is the first thing to say about the Act's constitutional standing.

Article 44 does not authorise it and does not forbid it. It is a directive to "the State", which includes a State Government and Legislature, and its object is a code "throughout the territory of India". A State code is therefore a partial performance of a national objective, which is either a beginning or a contradiction depending on which side of the argument one is on.