Wills Under The Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code: Issues And Challenges
- IJLLR Journal
- Apr 22
- 2 min read
Mr. Ayush Singh, Symbiosis Law School, Nagpur
ABSTRACT
The Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code, 2024 (hereinafter by the name of UCC or the Code) marks a historic step in the history of the Indian legal system as the first significant statutory effort by a State Legislature to codify personal law in the areas of marriage, divorce, succession, inheritance and testamentary dispositions under a unified, religion-neutral system. Some of its most significant provisions are those which concern testamentary succession-in other words the law of wills. The Code replaces centuries-old systems of personal law (which apply to Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis and other groups) that the State of Uttarakhand used to apply to the disposal of the property of a person of testamentary capacity on death with a set of rules that apply uniformly to all.
This paper will provide a systematized and analytical study of the provisions in wills under the Uttarakhand UCC. It contextualizes these provisions within the wider conceptual and constitutional context of an equal and uniform civil law in India, critically analyzes the substantive and procedural aspects of testamentary law as codified in the Code, and points out major issues and challenges that have arisen/are likely to arise in implementation. These issues cut across the lines of constitutional legitimacy, religious freedom, gender equality, institutional capacity, and compatibility with the existing central legislation. Drawing a comparative evaluation with the Indian Succession Act, 1925, and some international models, the paper ends with certain normative and policy recommendations to a fairer and more practicable scheme of testamentary law in Uttarakhand. The need to have a Uniform Civil Code in India is as ancient as the Constitution itself. Article 44 of the Constitution of India commits the State to strive to achieve a common civil code to the citizens across the territory of India, and over the course of its 70-year history since the beginning of the Constitution this aspiration has been repeatedly left unfulfilled by the political considerations of reform in the personal law areas that were influenced by religion. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum,4 and Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India,− pressure on Parliament to promulgate a Uniform Civil Code as a constitutional duty.
