The committee formed under the leadership of retired judge Smt. Ranjana Prakash Desai for Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand submitted the draft to Chief Minister Shri Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday. In a program organized at the Mukhy Sevak Sadan at the Chief Minister Camp Office, the Chief Minister said that before the Legislative Assembly elections 2022, we had promised the people of Uttarakhand state to bring a Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand as per the resolution of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Chief Minister said that 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 27th May 2022 under the leadership of retired Supreme Court judge Smt. Ranjana Prakash Desai A five-member committee was formed. Former Chief Justice of Sikkim High Court Pramod Kohli, former Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand Shatrughan Singh, Vice Chancellor of Doon University Prof. 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 sub-committee was to prepare the draft of the “Code”. The work of the second sub-committee was to invite suggestions from the residents of the state and also to establish dialogue. The committee started the public dialogue program from the country's first village Mana and received suggestions from all sections of people in all the districts of the state.
During this period, a total of 43 public dialogue programs were conducted and the dialogue program was completed with a discussion with the migrant Uttarakhandi brothers and sisters on 14th June 2023 in New Delhi.
The Chief Minister said that along with the launch of a web portal on 8th September 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 percent of the families of the state. 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 Shri 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 will 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.
On this occasion, Chief Secretary Smt. Radha Raturi, Secretary Shri R. Meenakshi Sudaram, Shri Vinay Shankar Pandey, Special Secretary Shri Parag Madhukar Dhakate, Uniform Civil Code Member Secretary Shri Ajay Mishra and Director General Information Shri Banshidhar Tiwari were present.