Gender Justice and Uniform Civil Code: An Overview

Abstract

The Indian democratic society, which is governed by the rule of law, in which it is predicted that all citizens are equal before law and entitled to receive equal protection of law, irrespective of their caste, creed, religion, race and sex etc. But, the pillar of humanity i.e. women are jeopardized in many ways and bound to face problems of varied nature only due to being women. Constitutional and statutory protections and safeguards could not provide fruitful results for their protection in form of a human being. Though, the Indian Judiciary has also done a lot but it is ground reality that there are some limitations on jurisdiction of Judiciary and Judiciary cannot take over the functions of other organs of the State viz. executive and legislative. In this connection, the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), a constitutional mandate, is awaiting the mercy of Indian Legislature to take the form of law to provide equal status to women, who are victims of diversities in personal laws.

In India, it is harsh fact that women, at the first hand, are not women rather they are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew or Parsi. This mentality is the root cause of our backwardness, discrimination and various social evils. It is need of hour tounderstand the utility of UCC which is an efficient tool to harmonise the diversities of laws in personal matters which will ultimately achieve the objective enshrined in gender justice. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to draw the full picture of UCC, its need and relevance for enactment.