Article 44 — Uniform Civil Code

Article 44 appears in Part IV of the Constitution of India, the chapter enumerating the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP). Its text is brief and unequivocal: "The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India." The provision traces directly to the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly's Sub-Committee on Fundamental Rights and the drafting work overseen by B. R. Ambedkar between 1947 and 1949. During the Assembly debate of 23 November 1948, Muslim members including Mohammad Ismail Sahib and B. Pocker Sahib moved amendments to immunise personal law from the article; these were defeated, but the compromise reached was to place the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) among the directive principles rather than among enforceable fundamental rights. Article 37 fixes the consequence of that placement: directive principles are not enforceable by any court, yet they are fundamental in the governance of the country and impose a duty on the State to apply them in lawmaking.

Procedurally, Article 44 confers no self-executing obligation and creates no individual cause of action. Its realisation requires affirmative legislation, and the constitutional locus of competence lies in the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule. Entry 5 of List III covers "marriage and divorce; infants and minors; adoption; wills, intestacy and succession; joint family and partition," meaning both Parliament and state legislatures may legislate on personal law. Under Article 254, a state law on a concurrent subject that conflicts with a central law is void unless it has received the President's assent and even then yields to subsequent Parliamentary enactment. A nationwide UCC would therefore proceed through ordinary legislation passed by Parliament under Article 245 read with the Concurrent List, requiring a simple majority rather than the special majority that Article 368 demands for constitutional amendment.

The directive is to be read alongside the personal-law systems it would displace. India currently administers religion-specific codes: the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, Hindu Succession Act 1956, Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956, and Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956 govern Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs; the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937 and the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act 1939 govern Muslims; the Indian Christian Marriage Act 1872 and the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act 1936 govern those communities. The Special Marriage Act 1954 already offers a secular, opt-in alternative for civil marriage irrespective of religion, functioning as a partial template for what a comprehensive UCC might codify across marriage, divorce, maintenance, succession, adoption and guardianship.

Goa furnishes the sole standing example of a common civil code in force in India: the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867, retained after the territory's incorporation in 1961, applies uniformly to residents regardless of faith, though with documented exceptions. In February 2024 the Uttarakhand Assembly passed the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code Bill, the first such enactment by an Indian state under the post-1950 constitutional framework; it received the President's assent and the rules were notified in January 2025, covering marriage, divorce, succession and the registration of live-in relationships while exempting Scheduled Tribes. The 21st Law Commission, in its 2018 consultation paper, concluded that a UCC was "neither necessary nor desirable at this stage," whereas the 22nd Law Commission reopened public consultation in June 2023.

Article 44 must be distinguished from the Right to Freedom of Religion under Articles 25 to 28, with which it is frequently set in tension. Article 25 protects freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion, but expressly subjects that right to public order, morality, health and—critically—to the State's power under Article 25(2)(b) to make laws for social welfare and reform. The Supreme Court has repeatedly read this clause as permitting legislative reform of personal practices. Article 44 is also distinct from the equality guarantees of Articles 14 and 15; advocates argue uniformity advances equality and the gender-justice mandate of Article 15(3), while critics contend that mandated uniformity may itself infringe the religious and cultural rights of minorities protected under Articles 29 and 30.

The judiciary has urged action without compelling it. In Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum (1985), the Court awarded maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code and lamented that Article 44 had remained a "dead letter"; the resulting political backlash produced the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986. In Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India (1995) and Lily Thomas v. Union of India (2000) the Court again invoked Article 44 while adjudicating bigamy through religious conversion. In Shayara Bano v. Union of India (2017) the Court struck down instantaneous triple talaq, and Parliament subsequently enacted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act 2019. Each decision reflects incremental reform of discrete practices rather than wholesale codification, and the question of minority consent and federal variation remains politically contested.

For the working practitioner—the UPSC aspirant, the policy researcher, or the legislative drafter—Article 44 is the canonical illustration of the justiciable–non-justiciable divide in the Indian constitutional scheme and of the State's affirmative but unenforceable duty to pursue social reform through ordinary law. It anchors GS Paper II discussions of the DPSP, secularism, federalism and minority rights, and its live status following the Uttarakhand enactment and the 22nd Law Commission's consultation makes it a recurring subject in both examination and contemporary policy debate. Mastery of the provision requires holding together its text, its concurrent-list mechanics, the existing mosaic of personal laws, and the line of Supreme Court dicta that have kept it perennially current.