New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Assam government on Friday (February 23) approved the repeal of the Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorces Registration Act, 1935, in what an Assam minister termed as a significant step forward towards implementing the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the state. 

While chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed that the decision will help the government prevent child marriages in the state, his cabinet minister Jayanta Malla Baruah laid out a larger motivation behind the move, that is to implement the UCC in Assam. Baruah also said that the existing law is a “colonial Act”. 

Taking to X (formerly called Twitter), Sarma wrote, “On February 23, the Assam cabinet made a significant decision to repeal the age-old Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorces Registration Act. This act contained provisions allowing marriage registration even if the bride and groom had not reached the legal ages of 18 and 21, as required by the law. This move marks another significant step towards prohibiting child marriages in Assam.”

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Sarma has been leading a campaign against child marriages, but his critics claim that the campaign has mostly targeted Muslim families of the state and has visible communal undertones. 

However, on Friday, Sarma said that the need to repeal the Act arose because it does not require mandatory registration of marriages and divorces, and is only voluntary, leaving much scope for “non-compliance of norms”. 

"As per provisions of the act, there remains scope for registering marriages of intended persons below 21 years (for males) and 18 years (for females) and there is hardly any monitoring for implementation of the Act," state government told the news agency ANI.

Hindustan Times reported that the repeal of the Act will allow the Assam government’s district commissioners and district registrars to “take custody of registration records held by 94 Muslim Marriage Registrars”. The Muslim Marriage Registrars have been promised a one-time compensation of Rs 2 lakh for their rehabilitation. 

Baruah said that Muslim marriages will be registered under the Special Marriage Act, once the previous law is repealed, claiming that the Act was being misused to get child marriages registered. 

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After Uttarakhand, which recently passed the UCC Bill, in the assembly, the Assam government has made the UCC as a big political promise, with chief minister Sarma making it a poll issue. Sarma has also been campaigning to ban polygamy in the state, in what is a clear aim at the Muslim Personal Law, especially because he has also declared that the state’s UCC Bill will exempt the adivasis of the state.  

The Uttarakhand UCC Bill has also kept the tribal population out of its ambit. The BJP government in Gujarat has also brought a UCC Bill and plans to pass it in the state assembly soon. 

The selective nature of the UCC draft Bills in these states have led to leaders like AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi claiming that the UCC violates the fundamental rights of Indian muslims. 

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