UCC bill set to be tabled as Ukhand cabinet clears way

The Uttarakhand cabinet on Sunday approved the final draft of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), two days after a five-member expert panel submitted it, paving the way for tabling of a draft bill for its implementation during a special four-day session of the state assembly that commences on Monday, people familiar with the matter said.

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The UCC draft was approved during an hour-long cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami at his residence in Dehradun on Sunday evening.

"In the cabinet meeting, a proposal to bring a bill in the upcoming assembly session was unanimously passed. We will move forward in the direction to make it an act," news agency ANI quoted Dhami as saying.

Officials familiar with the matter said the UCC draft bill is likely to be brought in the assembly on Tuesday.

The development came two days after a five-member committee looking into the possibility of implementing UCC in Uttarakhand submitted its draft report to Dhami, setting the ball rolling for the fulfilment of a decades-old ideological goal of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the hill state.

Dhami had earlier said that the state government would study the report of the panel, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, before bringing a draft bill based on it in the assembly.