UCC committee submits final report to Uttarakhand CM Dhami

DEHRADUN: The committee formed under the leadership of retired judge Ranjana Prakash Desai for the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in Uttarakhand submitted the draft to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday.

In a programme organised at the Mukhya Sevak Sadan located at the Chief Minister Camp Office, the Chief Minister said that before the Legislative Assembly elections in 2022, they had promised the people of Uttarakhand state to bring a uniform civil code to Uttarakhand as per the resolution of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

#WATCH | Dehradun | UCC Committee Chairperson Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai along with the drafting committee members hand over the UCC draft report to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in a program organized at Mukhya Sevak Sadan. pic.twitter.com/xRMG700eWu

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The Chief Minister said, “As per our promise, in the first cabinet meeting immediately after the formation of the government, we had decided to constitute an expert committee to frame a Uniform Civil code, and on May 27, 2022, a five-member committee was formed under the leadership of retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai. Former Chief Justice of Sikkim High Court Pramod Kohli, former Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand, Shatrughan Singh, Vice Chancellor of Doon University Surekha Dangwal and social worker Manu Gaur were included in the committee.
Two sub-committees were also formed by the committee. Out of which the work of one subcommittee was to prepare the draft of the ‘Code’. The work of the second subcommittee was to invite suggestions from the residents of the state and also to establish dialogue”.

The committee started the public dialogue programme in the country’s first village, Mana, and received suggestions from all sections of the population in all the districts of the state. During this period, a total of 43 public dialogue programmes were conducted and the dialogue programme was completed with a discussion with the migrant Uttarakhandi brothers and sisters on June 14, 2023, in New Delhi.

The Chief Minister said that along with the launch of a web portal on September 8, 2022 by the committee to invite suggestions from every section of the society for preparing its report, suggestions were also invited from all the citizens of the state through SMS and WhatsApp messages.

The committee received two lakh thirty-two thousand nine hundred sixty-one (2,32,961) suggestions through various mediums, Which is equal to about 10 per cent of the families in the state. A total of 72 meetings of the committee were called to interact with about 10 thousand people and study about 02 lakh 33 thousand suggestions received.

After receiving the report from the committee, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, on behalf of the people of the state and the state government, thanked all the learned members of the committee and hoped that this contribution of the committee members would be a boon not only for the state but for the entire country Will prove to be a milestone.

The Chief Minister said that after studying and examining this report, the government will prepare a draft of the Uniform Civil Code law for the state of Uttarakhand as soon as possible and place the related bill in the special session of the upcoming Legislative Assembly. The government will move rapidly towards implementing this law. (ANI)