The Maharashtra Uniform Civil Code panel has opened a public consultation on 37 questions that could reshape how the state registers marriages and live-in relationships, handles divorce and inheritance, and defines the rights of partners and children. The exercise is not merely a debate over whether Maharashtra should adopt a common civil code. It is also an examination of how the state records, administers and resolves some of the most consequential private disputes affecting households.
The committee, appointed by the Maharashtra government and headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Desai, launched its website on Thursday and invited citizens and organisations to submit feedback by November 15. It has six months from its formation in July to submit a report, draft and recommendations for implementing a UCC in the state.
That timetable places the consultation at the centre of the panel’s work. The questions seek responses on minimum marriage age, registration systems, divorce procedures, inheritance, custody, maintenance and live-in relationships. Respondents can answer yes, no or no comment, while a second section allows individuals and organisations to submit written suggestions and describe problems they have faced in personal civil matters.
The administrative question running through the questionnaire is whether a common framework can make civil processes more consistent without erasing the different legal and customary contexts that currently shape family life. The panel asks whether Maharashtra should implement a UCC, whether it can do so without infringing the freedom of religion, and whether a common code would reduce legal disputes and improve the efficiency of legal processes. These are questions about both law and state capacity.
A proposed common registration system illustrates the challenge. The panel has asked whether marriages, divorces and live-in relationships should be recorded through a common system. On live-in relationships, it seeks views on whether entering and ending such relationships should require registration and whether partners should receive legal protection, including women’s claims to maintenance and inheritance if they are abandoned.
Registration can create an official record, but the supplied questionnaire does not establish how such a system would operate, which authority would maintain it, what documents would be required or how privacy would be protected. Those details matter because registration is not only a legal formality. It determines what the state can recognise, track and use when disputes arise over maintenance, custody, inheritance or the status of children.
The consultation also brings private relationships into the sphere of routine administration. If live-in relationships were required to be registered, the state would have to define the point at which a relationship begins, the circumstances in which it ends and the rights that follow from those events. The panel has raised those questions, but the material released so far does not provide a proposed operational model.
The same issue appears in the questions on children. The panel asks whether children born to couples in live-in relationships should have inheritance rights and receive care and maintenance from their parents. It also asks whether a uniform law should govern the maintenance of dependent children across religions and whether the welfare and best interests of children should be the primary consideration in custody disputes.
These questions shift the focus from the formal status of an adult relationship to the protection of dependants. They also show why a UCC would have consequences beyond marriage law. Decisions about custody, maintenance and succession affect access to family property, financial support and legal recognition. The consultation’s reference to agricultural and ancestral land makes the property dimension explicit.
Inheritance is among the most consequential areas in the questionnaire. The panel asks whether men and women should have equal inheritance rights across communities, whether uniform rules should govern succession when a person dies without a valid will, and whether individuals should be free to bequeath their entire property through a will. These questions could affect residential property, family-held assets, agricultural land and ancestral holdings, although the questionnaire itself does not set out the rules the panel may eventually recommend.
For urban households, inheritance disputes can have direct consequences for the ownership and use of homes and other property. Yet the supplied material does not establish how a future common succession framework would interact with existing titles, wills, family arrangements or land records. That gap is significant because a legal change can require corresponding changes in registration, documentation and dispute resolution. The panel has invited public suggestions on inheritance of agricultural and ancestral land, but the implementation pathway remains to be designed.
The questions on marriage and divorce raise a similar tension between uniformity and individual circumstances. Respondents are asked to choose a minimum marriage age from 18, 21, 24 and 27 years. They are also asked whether a person should be allowed to marry while already married, whether customary practices and religious ceremonies should be preserved, and whether a uniform list of prohibited relationships should govern whom people can marry.
On divorce, the panel is seeking views on common grounds and procedures for all communities, equal grounds for men and women, and a prohibition on extra-judicial divorce. The questionnaire therefore combines questions about equality, procedure and the continued recognition of customary and religious practices. It does not, however, indicate which options the committee favours or how competing responses will be weighed.
The public consultation’s design is itself an institutional signal. Individuals may optionally disclose their religion, caste category and gender, while organisations are asked to identify their area of work, including child welfare, education, human rights and senior citizen welfare. This could help the committee understand how views differ across affected groups, but the supplied material does not state how the responses will be published, analysed or incorporated into the final draft.
The committee has also said it will organise public consultations on different aspects of the proposed code. That process will be important because the questionnaire covers issues that are often experienced through local administrative systems: marriage registration, family courts, maintenance proceedings, custody disputes, succession claims and property documentation. A common legal principle would still require officials, courts and record-keeping systems to apply it consistently.
The panel’s work also comes with an institutional complication. Retired Bombay High Court judge Justice R C Chavan resigned on September 19 after two meetings, citing differences over public feedback and questioning the presence of retired IAS officer Shatrughna Singh, then an adviser, at a meeting. Two days later, the state appointed Singh as a member-cum-senior adviser. The supplied report does not establish how the resignation has affected the committee’s functioning or the consultation process, but it places the importance of procedure and representation in sharper focus.
Maharashtra is not considering the issue in isolation. Justice Desai has previously headed UCC panels in Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. Uttarakhand became the first state to implement a UCC in January 2025, while Gujarat, Assam and Madhya Pradesh have passed UCC Bills that are awaiting final approval from the President. The report does not provide comparative details on how those frameworks operate or how their implementation has affected registration, courts or property administration.
That absence of comparative evidence limits what can currently be concluded about the likely effects in Maharashtra. The panel has asked whether a UCC would reduce disputes and make legal processes more efficient, but those outcomes remain questions for consultation rather than established results. The available material also does not specify the proposed institutional responsibilities, budget, digital systems, appeal mechanisms or transition rules.
The central issue, therefore, is not simply whether Maharashtra supports or opposes a UCC. It is whether the state can translate a common set of civil rules into accessible and reliable institutions without creating new uncertainty for families, partners, children and property holders. The panel’s 37 questions identify the areas where that uncertainty is most likely to arise, but they do not yet resolve it.
The next stages are the public feedback deadline of November 15, the committee’s planned consultations and its report, draft and recommendations due within six months of its formation. Until those documents are released, the consultation establishes the scope of the proposed reform, not its final legal content or implementation model.
