‘What if there is a child’: Uttarakhand HC asks ‘what is wrong’ in regulating live-in relationships

Hearing a petition challenging provisions of the Uniform Civil Code Act, 2024, the Uttarakhand High Court on Wednesday asked “what was wrong” in regulating live-in relationships, reported The Indian Express.

The Uniform Civil Code came into effect in Uttarakhand on January 27. The law mandates that all persons in live-in relationships within Uttarakhand, as well as all residents of the state temporarily living outside, must register their relationships. Failing to register a live-in relationship could result in imprisonment for up to three months and a fine of up to Rs 10,000.

Family law and women’s rights lawyers have suggested that the current legal framework already provides the safeguards that registration of live-in relationships is ostensibly meant for: to protect the rights of the female partner and children from the live-in relationship.

They warned that by making it more difficult to enter into live-in relationships, such regulation impinges on fundamental rights.

Two persons, Almasuddin Siddiqui and Ikram, have challenged the Uniform Civil Code in the High Court, stating that it violates the fundamental rights of Muslims and other citizens, as well as essential religious practices of the Muslim community, reported Bar and Bench.

On Wednesday, the High Court issued notices to the state and Union governments in the pleas.

A bench of Chief Justice G Narender also stated that there was a…

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