Uttarakhand on Monday became the first state to implement a uniform civil code. With this, the Muslim personal laws relating to marriage, divorce and inheritance became null and void in the BJP-ruled mountain state, where Muslims make up about 12 per cent of the population.

“It’s a historic moment. It has been a long wait for the people of our state who had been demanding the UCC for many years. It became law today after receiving clearance from the state cabinet,” chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami told reporters.

“Don’t interpret the UCC as a move against any religion; it’s for every religion.... We have to remove the disparities in the civil codes of different communities to ensure that people’s issues are resolved without any hassle.”

Dhami, however, said the government had kept the Scheduled Tribes out of the new law’s ambit.

While some Muslim leaders have alleged the UCC is meant to target their community, Dhami said: “Muslim women are being empowered under the Act. We have received appreciation from them.”

The Congress described the move as “kick-starting a pilot project” (to introduce the UCC across the country) without a consensus, and argued that a “uniform” civil code could not be state-specific, PTI reported.

Several BJP-ruled states, including Assam, have already said they want to adopt Uttarakhand’s UCC as a model.

The 400-page UCC Act of Uttarakhand has four sections, one each on marriage and divorce, live-in relationships, births and deaths, and inheritance.

The Act outlaws polygamy and gives equal inheritance rights to sons and daughters. A child born of parents who are not legally married will be considered a legal heir of his or her biological parents. Adopted children will have similar rights.

The system of Halala in the Muslim community has become illegal. It will be mandatory to register a marriage or a live-in relationship with the district administration. Facilities have been created to help people register their marriages online, sources said.

Dhami said his administration had begun the process of appointing additional staff and imparting training to them for the smooth implementation of the new law.

“The law protects the rights of the people. Many of their issues can now be resolved at government offices without their having to be there physically. Every UCC-related facility is available online. A mobile application is also being launched for this purpose,” he said.

PTI quoted him as saying: “(The) UCC is just an offering made by our state in the great yagya being performed by the Prime Minister to make the country a developed, organised, harmonious and self-reliant nation.”

The BJP had promised a UCC during the campaign for the 2022 Assembly elections in Uttarakhand.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said: “This is nothing but an attempt to fast-track the process, to have a pilot project, before you can impose... because you don’t have a consensus. So you do it like kick-starting a pilot project.”

He added: “Can a uniform civil code be state-specific? You talk of the ‘uniform’ civil code and then make it state-specific.”

Doon University vice-chancellor Surekha Dangwal, who had helped draft the UCC and frame its rules, said: “Gender parity across all religions is the spirit of UCC.”

She added: “Another remarkable feature of the UCC is that it treats all children as legitimate. We have, in fact, totally done away with the term ‘illegitimate’ in the context of children.”

The UCC has a special provision for defence personnel: a “privileged will” that can be made either in writing or by word of mouth.

Any soldier or air force personnel engaged in an expedition or actual warfare or a mariner at sea can make a privileged will under rules that have been kept flexible.

After forming the government in March 2022, Dhami had at the first state cabinet meeting cleared a proposal for the formation of an expert committee to draft the UCC.

The panel, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, was formed on May 27 that year. It submitted a four-volume draft after a year and a half’s dialogue with different segments of the state’s population.

The draft was sent to the state government on February 2 last year, and the Assembly passed the UCC Act on February 7. The legislation received the President’s assent about a month later, paving the way for its implementation.

An expert panel headed by former chief secretary Shatrughna Singh framed the rules and regulations for the law’s implementation and submitted its report late last year.

“The Gangotri of UCC will spring from Uttarakhand and spread to the rest of the country,” Dhami had said early this month.

Additional reporting by PTI from Dehradun