President Droupadi Murmu has signed Gujarat’s Uniform Civil Code Bill, 2026, six months after the Assembly passed it on March 24. The assent, reported on October 2 by ANI and Outlook, makes Gujarat the second state after Uttarakhand to enact a single civil law on marriage, divorce, inheritance and live-in relationships. The law still needs rules from the state government before anyone has to comply with it.
How the Bill got here
The government tabled the Bill in March after a committee chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai submitted its recommendations. Justice Desai had earlier headed the panel that drafted Uttarakhand’s code, and the two laws share much of their design. Congress and AAP opposed the Bill on the Assembly floor, and the BJP majority passed it by voice vote after a debate of roughly eight hours.
Because personal law sits on the Concurrent List and the Bill overlaps with central statutes such as the Hindu Marriage Act and Muslim personal law, the Governor reserved it for the President’s consideration. That step explains the six-month gap between passage and assent.
What the law requires
The text, available through PRS Legislative Research, and reporting by Scroll and Outlook point to these main provisions:
- Marriage registration becomes compulsory for every marriage solemnised under any religious or customary rite, generally within 60 days. Outlook reports fines of up to Rs 10,000 for failing to register.
- Bigamy and polygamy are banned for all communities covered by the code.
- Divorce requires a court decree. Out-of-court and customary dissolutions, including triple talaq, lose legal effect, and the law also bars nikah halala.
- Live-in couples living in Gujarat must register with a registrar within a month of starting the relationship, and must also report when it ends. According to Scroll, skipping registration can bring up to three months in jail or a Rs 10,000 fine. Children born to such couples count as legitimate, and a deserted partner can claim maintenance.
- Inheritance gives sons and daughters equal shares.
Scheduled Tribes stay outside the code. In Gujarat that carve-out covers a large population: tribal communities made up close to 15% of the state’s residents in the 2011 Census, concentrated in the eastern belt from Banaskantha to Dang.
What changes for Gujarat residents, and when
Nothing changes on the day of assent. The state has to frame rules that set out forms, fees, timelines and which officials act as registrars. Uttarakhand took close to a year after its President’s assent in March 2024 to bring its code into force in January 2025, and built an online portal for registrations in the meantime. Gujarat officials have not announced a date.
When the rules arrive, the biggest practical burden falls on two groups. Couples who marry under community or religious rites and never register the marriage will need to file paperwork with a deadline attached. Live-in couples in Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara, many of them migrants from other states, will need to disclose their relationship to the state or risk prosecution. Privacy questions about who can see that data drew the most criticism in Uttarakhand, and lawyers there have challenged the live-in rules in the High Court.
The equal-inheritance rule matters most for families whose personal law gave daughters smaller shares or excluded them from ancestral property. Women in those families gain a statutory claim, though disputes will still go through civil courts.
The political argument
ANI reported that BJP leaders welcomed the assent as a step towards equality and women’s rights, while Congress called it a distraction from governance issues. IANS separately reported Congress leader Salman Khurshid arguing that a code passed state by state cannot be called uniform, since each BJP-ruled state now writes its own version.
The point has practical consequences. With Uttarakhand and Gujarat on separate statutes, a couple who registers a live-in relationship in one state faces different obligations if they move to the other. Courts may eventually have to rule on how these state codes sit alongside central personal laws.
What to watch
- The draft rules, and whether the government invites public comment before notifying them.
- Whether Gujarat builds an online registration portal before enforcement begins.
- Legal challenges in the Gujarat High Court, especially to the live-in registration clause.
Sources: ANI, Outlook, Scroll, PRS Legislative Research (Bill text)
This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.