LLM Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law Constitutionalism Pluralism and Federalism 2019 Question Paper with Solutions

The word "uniform" carries three possible meanings and choosing between them is the analytical work. It may mean one law for all, replacing every personal law. It may mean equal rights across laws, so that communities keep their own systems but no system may discriminate on grounds Article 14 forbids, which is what the Twenty-first Law Commission recommended. Or it may mean an optional common code, available to anyone who chooses it, which is what the Special Marriage Act, 1954, already provides and what Ambedkar himself contemplated in the Constituent Assembly on 23 November 1948 when he said that Article 44 is enabling and that Parliament might begin by making a code purely voluntary. Most of the political argument treats the first meaning as the only one, which is why it has been so intractable.

Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India, (1995) 3 SCC 635, held that a Hindu husband who converts to Islam to take a second wife does not dissolve his first marriage, that the second marriage is void and that he is liable under section 494 of the Indian Penal Code; Lily Thomas v. Union of India, (2000) 6 SCC 224, affirmed it and clarified that no direction to enact a code had been given. John Vallamattom v. Union of India, (2003) 6 SCC 611, struck down section 118 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, restricting a Christian's power to bequeath for charitable purposes. Shayara Bano v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1, struck down talaq-e-biddat by three to two as manifestly arbitrary.

The decisions of restraint must be given too. Pannalal Bansilal Pitti v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1996) 2 SCC 498, held that a uniform law though desirable may be counter-productive to the unity and integrity of the nation and that gradual progressive change is the constitutional method. Ahmedabad Women Action Group v. Union of India, (1997) 3 SCC 573, refused to strike down personal law as raising issues of State policy. And State of Bombay v. Narasu Appa Mali, AIR 1952 Bom 84, holding uncodified personal law not to be "law in force" under Article 13, still blocks the direct route, although Chandrachud J. called it incorrectly decided in Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, (2019) 11 SCC 1.

The State codes of 2024 to 2026

The Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand Act, 2024, received assent on 12 March 2024 and came into force on 27 January 2025, the first comprehensive State code in independent India. It prohibits polygamy and halala, provides a common law of marriage, divorce, succession and inheritance, requires registration of marriage and of live-in relationships, and exempts Scheduled Tribes. The Uniform Civil Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2026, followed in January 2026. Gujarat became the second State on 24 March 2026, its Assembly passing the Gujarat Uniform Civil Code Bill, 2026, after a committee chaired by Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai reported; it too bans polygamy, mandates registration and exempts Scheduled Tribes.

The arguments, and where the initiative now lies

For a code, four arguments. Article 44 is an express direction to the State. Gender justice within communities has repeatedly failed the test of Article 14, and every one of the leading cases above concerns a woman whose entitlement depended on the community she was born into. A common code removes the incentive to convert in order to alter one's marital obligations, which is the mischief Sarla Mudgal addressed. And criminal law, contract and procedure have been uniform since the nineteenth century without threatening any community's identity.

Against a code, four arguments. Article 25 protects religious freedom and communities treat personal law as part of it. Uniformity imposed by a majority in a plural society may be received as assimilation, which is what Pannalal Bansilal Pitti meant in saying that a uniform law though highly desirable may be counter-productive to the unity and integrity of the nation. Hindu law was reformed gradually and by consent across the decade of the Hindu Code Bills, which suggests how family law reform actually succeeds. And tribal customary law raises the same objection independently of religion, since the Sixth Schedule confers on autonomous district councils legislative power over inheritance, marriage and social custom, which is why both State codes exempt Scheduled Tribes.

Conclusion. Article 44 has produced forty years of judicial exhortation and no central statute, and the reason is that the Court can do only two things and has done both. It has applied secular statutes to defeat unjust results, from Shah Bano through Danial Latifi to Abdul Samad in July 2024, and it has struck down discriminatory provisions where a statute gave it a foothold, in John Vallamattom and Shayara Bano. It has never ordered a code, because Article 44 is addressed to the State and Narasu Appa Mali keeps uncodified personal law outside Article 13. Goa shows that a common code is workable, and also that even it carries exceptions. The initiative has now passed to State legislatures, and the honest assessment is that what they are building is not the uniform civil code of Article 44 but something else: two State codes, each exempting Scheduled Tribes, each facing challenge under Article 21. If the object is equality of rights between men and women within every community, the Law Commission's route of amending the discriminatory provisions in each personal law reaches it faster and with less cost; if the object is one law for all citizens, only Parliament can deliver it, and Article 44 asks it to endeavour, which for seventy five years it has not.