K V Seetharamaiah
One nation one law, one nation one election, one nation one ration card, one man one wife should feature India like one nation one currency all over the world. Uniform Civil Code (UCC) can be the answer for one nation one law. In case of conflict between Constitutional law and Personal law, Constitutional law must override Personal law. Personal laws must not interfere with Constitutional law. When the interest of the nation demands UCC, it must be brought into force without hesitation and reservation. UCC would be the embodiment of one nation one law. For passing UCC, it could be now or never for NDA if the present dispensation is voted out in 2024 Lok Sabha election. Opportunity comes back if NDA retains its position. This is too early to predict what happens in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Two out of three core issues have been resolved. The three vexed issues were Ram Mandir dispute, Article 370 and UCC. UCC goes a long way in treating all the citizens alike irrespective of one’s caste, creed, region, religion. Constitutional law never interferes with Personal law so long as Personal law does not affect the interest of the nation. The law governing population policy, marriage and marriageable age, must be as dictated by the Constitution. Personal laws should not have any say in the matter. Because these are the issues that have bearings on the demographic character of the nation. It is imperative that UCC must come into force before the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and L K Advani in the past, had conceived the idea of one nation one election. This has been now put on back burner. One nation one election moots the idea of conducting Lok Sabha election and Assembly elections simultaneously.
It is good if Assembly elections are synchronised with Lok Sabha election from the economy point of view. Code of conduct will be in place at the same time if simultaneous elections are held. Enforcement of code of conduct is necessary soon after the election is declared but it stagnates the developmental works till the election is over. The nation will be on move during the period the code of conduct is in force but at slow pace. If election for both Lok Sabha and Assemblies is conducted simultaneously, the time to be spent in the days with code of conduct will drastically come down. One nation one election may not be free from hazzles. Problem arises when one or more state governments or the central government collapses in the middle due to hung Assembly or hung Lok Sabha. In such a case, the election has to be conducted and the duration of the government must end up with the time due for election in all other state governments or central government.
One nation one ration card has been in force. This has helped a great deal to the people. The one man one wife law has been the law applicable to only government employees. Others are not coming under the purview of this law as seriously as in the case of a government employee. While government proscribes bigamous or polygamous marriages to the government employees, the service conditions of government employees define how the terminal benefits of an employee who dies while in service have to be distributed among the surviving wives. This shows that the government prohibits bigamous or polygamous marriages on one hand and legalizes it when it comes to the matter of distribution of terminal benefits. This is farcical.
The law must make it amply clear that the terminal benefits of deceased employee must be made payable only to the first wife. Any one marrying a married person must be doing so at the risk of facing the law and denial of terminal benefits and family pension. This may not eliminate bigamous or polygamous marriage in toto. But it certainly impacts on persons marrying the married persons.
The time now for the central government is to take initiative to pass UCC. The government is left with very little time.
