New Delhi: The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is still being discussed at a nascent level within the judiciary and Law Commission of India, but academic institutions have gone a step ahead and launched competitions to draft the perfect code.
National Law School of India University, one of the most prestigious law schools of the country, along with Ramaiah College of Law, Bengaluru, is organizing a two-day national seminar where students will “prepare a draft on Uniform Civil Code, which should be possible to adopt under Art 44 of the Constitution of India.”
Article 44 of the Constitution says the state shall “endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code".
Named the “Constitutional Quest to Uniform Civil Code: Mirage or Compulsion”, the seminar scheduled March 17-18, allows students to submit papers on topics ranging from UCC, Constitution of India and Constitutionalism, The Jurisprudence on Uniform Civil Code to Common civil code/law v/s Uniform civil code.
This is not all, a law college in Trivandrum under the patronage of Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, Syro-Malankara Archdiocese of Trivandrum, is organizing a competition for all law students across the country to research and prepare a detailed ‘Model Uniform Civil Code’. The winning report will be presented before the president and the prime minister.
Cardinal Cleemis, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India told News18 that “this competition will help in the drafting of the UCC based on the Constitution.”
“A competition like this will enable important contribution to the drafting of the UCC based on academic research and findings, true to the spirit of our Constitution. This will help in formulating guidelines and show the way different communities perceive UCC,” said Cardinal Cleemis.
These competitions come shortly after the law commission questionnaire which seeks to gauge public opinion on the subject matter. More recently, while the Supreme Court expressed inclination to adjudicate on matters relating to Muslim divorce, it categorically stated that “it will not even touch UCC”.
Prof. Dr. K. Vikraman Nair, Principal of Mar Gregorios College of Law, Trivandrum, which is organising the competition, told News18 that this event is a “way to make the voices of the students heard to the Government on UCC and to train them on research methodologies.”
“Our competition focuses on law reforms. People with vested interests may try to see a different angle into it, but it is a completely academic exercise which will showcase what the students feel about this contemporary topic,” said Nair.
The organisers said students will get a time of eight months from February 15 to September 30 to prepare the model code. The teams will select any one aspect of the proposed UCC like marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption, custody and guardianship, inheritance or succession for study, research and reform.
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