For credible Uniform Civil Code, Hindu law must first be reformed

Time of India

24-04-2025

Illustration: Shinod Akkaraparambil
The renewed push for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), with
Uttarakhand
becoming the first state to enact one, is being projected as a step toward national unity through secularism. But this framing — where opposition to the current
UCC
draft is cast as opposition to secularism — masks a more fundamental issue: that a just civil code must be rooted not in uniformity for its own sake, but in the dismantling of inequities embedded within existing personal laws, especially those governing the majority.
Reasonable apprehension that the
Uttarakhand UCC
will serve as a national blueprint arises not only from its substance, but from the absence of reform within the Hindu legal framework, which continues to uphold archaic structures of inheritance, guardianship and divorce.
A credible UCC must begin by reforming the majority's personal laws — not to single them out, but because the onus of equality lies most heavily where the law has remained unreformed. While minority communities have borne and embraced legislative transformations,
Hindu law
has retained several inequitable structures under the guise of tradition.
Muslims, for instance, have seen the abolition of triple talaq as a dramatic departure from centuries of practice. The courts have consistently ensured that Muslim women are entitled to maintenance under Section 125 CrPC, as reaffirmed in 'Daniel Latifi vs Union of India' (2001), striking a balance between religious tenets and constitutional morality.
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Similarly, the constitutional invalidation of Section 118 of the Indian Succession Act has removed unjust restrictions on the right of Christians to make charitable bequests. These are not small revisions. They reflect structural shifts, which minority communities have accepted with dignity and maturity. There is reason to believe that future reforms such as outlawing polygamy or ensuring parity in inheritance for Muslim women will also be met with thoughtful engagement, not rejection. Against this backdrop, Hindu personal law must be the first subject of meaningful reform, not the last.
The coparcenary (joint heirship) system under the Mitakshara school of Hindu law continues to grant property rights by birth, a feudal holdover incompatible with modern ideas of merit, consent and equity.
Kerala
abolished the
Hindu Undivided Family
(HUF) system nearly half a century ago, recognising that it entrenches patriarchy and complicates property rights. Yet the HUF persists in the rest of India, largely due to fiscal incentives, not cultural adherence.
Income tax law permits them to function as separate entities, encouraging a proliferation of minor and major HUFs — legal fiction used to shield income and wealth under different names within the same family. This subverts the principle of tax equity and entrenches patriarchal property structures under the guise of legal privilege.
Section 15 of the
Hindu Succession Act
discriminates against women by prioritising the husband's heirs over her natal family. If a Hindu woman dies intestate, her self-acquired property often bypasses her own parents or siblings. A just UCC must amend this, ensuring equal inheritance lines for men and women, both marital and natal. In fact, Muslim personal law already provides a more egalitarian model in several respects: it recognises parents as heirs, places restrictions on testamentary freedom, and provides clear shares for women, even if not yet fully equal. These features offer a rich legal vocabulary for building a fairer code.
Despite the Supreme Court's progressive interpretation in 'Gita Hariharan vs RBI' (1999), the law still assumes paternal primacy in guardianship. Any serious UCC must codify the principle that both parents are equal guardians, and custody decisions must be guided solely by the child's welfare, not the parent's gender.
Hindu law still clings to fault-based divorce, turning dissolution into an adversarial process. A reformed code must adopt no-fault divorce, recognising the irretrievable breakdown of marriage and affirming mutual consent as the cornerstone of modern separation.
Equally important is the issue of matrimonial property. Today, assets acquired during marriage remain solely in the name of the individual who earned or acquired them — usually the husband — leaving the other partner economically vulnerable. A just civil code must establish the principle of community property, treating all income and assets earned during marriage as joint property. This recognises marriage as a partnership, economic as well as emotional.
Maintenance law remains unpredictable and inconsistent. A UCC must codify a clear, reasonable formula: between one-third to onehalf of the earning spouse's income, calibrated to the dependent spouse's own financial capacity. Such clarity would bring stability, predictability and dignity to those navigating separation.
The beauty of India's legal diversity is that progressive norms exist across communities, often in unexpected places. The Muslim prohibition on unfettered testamentary freedom, the Goa Civil Code's recognition of legitimacy for children born outside marriage, and the Islamic approach to divorce without blame all offer important models for reform. But this borrowing must be seamless, not spotlighted. The goal is not to parade one community's practices as more enlightened, but to build a cohesive legal architecture rooted in justice, compassion, and constitutional values.
The risk of the UCC becoming a majoritarian civil code in secular clothing is real. If the Uttarakhand model is replicated nationally without critical introspection, it may perpetuate the very inequalities it claims to abolish.
Uniformity, when built upon unequal foundations, becomes a tool of consolidation, not liberation. The real test of the UCC lies not in whether it is 'secular' in label, but whether it is equitable in effect. That journey must begin with dismantling the injustices internal to Hindu personal law, from HUFs and property by birth, to discriminatory inheritance rules, guardianship norms, and opaque maintenance provisions. If the majority community resists such introspection, then the call for a uniform code risks being seen not as a pursuit of equality, but a mechanism of assimilation.
The time has come not just to speak of uniformity, but to start with justice, especially within one's own house.
(The writer was formerly a judge of Punjab & Haryana high court)