Delhi High Court refuses to entertain plea for directions to enact Uniform Civil Code

The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to entertain a batch of petitions seeking directions to the Central government to enact a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) for the country [[Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union of India].A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Mini Pushkarna said it cannot direct the legislature to enact a law in this regard."We cannot direct legislature to enact a law. Supreme Court has already dealt with the issue and rejected the petitions," said the Court.The Court further said that the Law Commission is already seized of the matter and the petitioners are at liberty to approach the Law Commission with their suggestions.The Law Commission of India had in June sought views and suggestions from the public, recognized religious organizations and other stakeholders on Uniform Civil Code (UCC).The petitioners BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay and other including Nighat Abbas, Amber Zaid then proceeded to withdraw their pleas..The lead petition filed by Upadhyay in 2019 had sought a direction to the Central Government to constitute a Judicial Commission or a High Level Expert Committee to draft a Uniform Civil Code within three months.The petition sought a UCC for the country after considering the best practices of all religions, sects, civil laws of developed countries, and international conventions.In its response to the petition, the Central government sought dismissal of the petition. The Law Ministry said that UCC can be introduced only after an in-depth study of various personal laws governing different communities and cannot be done in three months based on court orders.Under the Constitutional scheme, only the parliament can undertake such a task and a court cannot issue a writ to the legislature to enact a particular legislation, the Law Ministry said in an affidavit filed by it..The Court on Friday said that Supreme Court's order on the issue is clear and categorical and the High Court will not go beyond the Supreme Court's order.It, therefore, refused to entertain the plea prompting the petitioners to withdraw the same.