New Delhi: Citing Goa as a “shining example” of an Indian state which has Uniform Civil Code, the Supreme Court on Friday lamented that nearly seven decades after the framers of Indian constitution had promised, there was no attempt to enact common civil code.
“It is interesting to note that whereas the founder of the Constitution in Article 44 in Part IV of the Constitution dealing with the Directive Principle of the State Policy has hoped and expected that the state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a Uniform Civil Code throughout the territories of India, till date no action has been taken in this regard,” said the bench of Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Aniruddha Bose in their judgment regretting inaction by the Central government.
Speaking for the bench, Justice Deepak Gupta said, “Though Hindu laws were codified in the year 1956, there has been. No attempt to frame a Uniform Civil Code applicable to all the citizens of the country despite exhortation by the top court.”
However, the court said that Goa is a shining example of an Indian state which has a Uniform Civil Code applicable to all, regardless of religion except for protecting certain limited rights.
Muslim men whose marriages are registered in Goa, the court said, “cannot practice polygamy” and for the “followers of Islam there is no provision for verbal divorce”.
The salient features with regard to the family property in Goa, the court noted, are that the married couple jointly holds the ownership of all the assets owned before marriage or acquired after marriage by each spouse.
Thus, in case of divorce, each spouse is entitled to half share of the assets.
The Goan law, however, permits pre-nuptial agreement which may have different system of division of assets.
The bone of contention in the case was a property of one Joquim Mariano Pereira located in Mumbai. The said property was a matter of litigation between his three daughters and their heirs.
