Paving way for UCC

The Government of Assam has literally paved the way for the introduction of the Uniform Civil Code in the state with the repeal of the age-old Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorces Registration Act on Friday. The repealed Act, it may be recalled, contained provisions that allowed marriage registration even if the bride and groom had not reached the legal ages of 18 and 21 years. This is in fact a significant step towards prohibiting child marriages in Assam, and the Chief Minister must be hailed for taking such a bold decision. As the Assam cabinet gave approval to the Assam Repealing Ordinance, 2024, district commissioners and district registrars will be authorised to take custody of registration records currently held by 94 Muslim Marriage Registrars across the state. Moreover, it has been stated that the new provisions will provide for one-time compensation of two lakh rupees to Muslim Marriage Registrars for their rehabilitation after the Act is repealed. The Assam government has meanwhile said the Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorces Registration Act, which now stands repealed, was an obsolete pre-independence Act of the British for the Province of Assam. It is important to note that the registration of marriages and divorces was not mandatory as per the repealed Act, and the machinery of registration is informal, leaving a lot of scope for non-compliance with existing norms. The erstwhile Act had scope for registering the marriage of intended persons below 21 years (for males) and 18 years (for females), and there was hardly any mechanism in place for monitoring the implementation of the Act in the past nine decades. As has been reported, under the same now-repeated Act, Muslim marriages and divorces could be registered voluntarily, and licences would be issued by the government to persons authorized for that purpose. Due to this final, crucial decision, such registration will no longer be allowed under the old law. Instead, the government aims to simplify the provisions under the Special Marriages Act, making the registration of marriage names the same across communities. It is pertinent to place on record that, though Muslims currently constitute about 34 percent of Assam’s total population, it was not so about a century ago when a large-scale influx of Muslims from erstwhile East Bengal and erstwhile East Pakistan had not begun. The increase in Assam’s Muslim population was not only triggered by a large-scale influx of land-hungry peasants from the neighbouring country but also by the rampant prevalence of child marriage and the refusal by a large section of the immigrant Muslims to follow the family planning norms. Altogether, 94 registrars were empowered under the now-repealed Act to register a marriage or divorce. The Assam government says the Special Marriage Act will now apply. It is indeed a timely decision that will have a long-term impact.