SC To Examine Plea By Shazia Ilmi For Uniform Code For Maintenance [Read Petition]

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday decided to examine a PIL filed by BJP leader Shazia Ilmi for a direction to the Centre to frame a standardised, uniform and common code for maintenance for wife, children and aged parents and alimony as well to overcome existing restrictions, conditions and discrepancies in the personal laws.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and J K Maheshwari tagged the petition, filed by advocate Sneha Kalita, along with a similar pending plea by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.

The petitioner was represented by senior advocate Garima Prasad and advocate Kalita.

The petitioner sought uniform grounds for maintenance irrespective of personal laws in case of Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Parsi, as a matter of human rights and fundamental rights enshrined in the Article 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution and also States' responsibility under Article 44 of the Constitution and International Conventions where India being signatory party.

The plea claimed that the cause of action accrued on September 13, 2019 when this Court in case of 'Jose Paulo Coutinho vs Maria Luiza Valentina Pereira' (2019) once again reiterated the need of uniform civil code as per Article 44 of the Constitution and stated that there has been no attempt to frame a Uniform Civil code applicable to all citizens of the country despite exhortations of this court in the case of 'Md Ahmed Khan vs Shah Bano Begum' (1985) and 'Sarla Mudgal vs Union of India' (1995).

It contended that the injury caused to public is large because 'maintenance and alimony' is one of the most crucial elements of life and generally comes in court of law.

"For many citizens, maintenance alimony is the only source of livelihood hence discrimination on the basis of religion race caste sex or place of birth is direct attack on right to life liberty and dignity, guaranteed under Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution," it said.

The petition contended there is an urgent need in the present scenario to address this for the promotion of secularism. The Law Commission can take this further through its monitoring and provide certain guidelines securing a gender and religion neutral Uniform Civil Code.

 [Read Petition]