The Dhami government of Uttarakhand has suffered a setback on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill. Governor Lieutenant General (Re) Gurmeet Singh has returned the amendment bills related to UCC and Freedom of Religion and Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion Act. He has cited technical flaws. Apart from grammatical and technical flaws, the governor has also raised questions on the punishment period for some crimes in the new laws, an official said.
He further said, now that the bills have come back from the Governor’s office, they will have to be redrafted. The errors pointed out will be removed and other technical deficiencies will also be corrected. The government will have two options, either get the amendments passed by bringing an ordinance or get them passed again in the Assembly and send them to the Governor for approval, the official said.
Shock for Dhami government
Both the religious conversion and UCC bills were among the most ambitious bills brought by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Pushkar Singh Dhami government. Congress had opposed them. He called it an attack on the minority community. The UCC was passed in January 2024 and the government made an amendment to the bill during the monsoon session of the Assembly in August this year.
What’s in the bill?
In several changes, the government increased the punishment to seven years for those who are in a live-in relationship despite being married. A similar punishment was proposed for those who enter into relationships through force, pressure or deception.
A new section 390-A has also been added to the bill. The Registrar General was given powers under Section 12 to cancel registrations related to marriage, divorce, live-in relationship or inheritance.
Although the anti-conversion law was already in force in the state in 2018, the government amended it in 2022 and again in 2025. This time, a jail sentence ranging from three years to life imprisonment was proposed for those found guilty of forced conversion. Earlier the maximum jail sentence for forced conversion was 10 years.
Congress targets the government
The state government has claimed that the Governor’s office returned the bills due to minor mistakes, but the Congress has termed the move as a ploy to keep the issues alive ahead of the assembly elections in 2027.
Uttarakhand Congress leader Suryakant Dhasmana said if these were only minor deficiencies, the governor’s office could have informally sent them back for rectification. Sending him back with a message is enough to confirm that either he is completely unhappy with the laws or this is just a ploy by the government to recall the bills and get them passed in the Assembly once again around the elections to be held in early 2027, because the BJP has already used all its tricks to win the elections and now they have nothing new left.
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