Madhya Pradesh: UCC Bill-2026 Tabled In MP Assembly
Provides jail term for non-registered live-in couples, prohibits polygamy, Nikah Halala: Reports
BHOPAL: The Mohan Yadav government on Monday tabled the Madhya Pradesh Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill, 2026 in the state Assembly.
The Bill, placed on the opening day of its monsoon session of the Assembly by state higher education minister Gautam Tetwal, is scheduled to be debated in the House on Tuesday.
The UCC draft Bill was cleared by the state cabinet, met under the chairmanship of chief minister Mohan Yadav at the historic place of Jagdishpura, earlier known as Islampur on the outskirts of Bhopal, on Sunday.
The chief minister has called the Bill as a ‘historic move’ by his government ‘to ensure equal rights, equal opportunities and equal justice, enshrined in the Articles 14 and 44 of the Constitution’.
The key provisions of the Bill included declaration of monogamy as the only legally valid form of marriage, criminalization of Nikah Halala, right to maintenance for women abandoned in a live-in relationship, and jail term for live-in couples who fail to register such relationships.
Scheduled tribes and nomadic and semi-nomadic communities with protected customary traditions have been kept out of the ambit of the UCC Bill.
In significant reform measures, the draft Bill proposed equal inheritance rights to sons, daughters, widows, widowers and parents. The law made it mandatory for registration of marriage and divorce from gram panchayat to urban local bodies.
The draft Bill made it mandatory for the live-in couples to register within a month, failing which, they will attract penalties including imprisonment.
The law also provides imprisonment up to five years for a married person entering into a live-in relationship when the spouse is alive.
The child born out of a live-in relationship is declared legitimate by the law to enjoy inheritance.
The state government maintained that the proposed legislation has ensured that there would be no interference in the freedom of citizens in practicing their religion and tradition.
The UCC draft Bill was prepared by a six-member committee headed by retired supreme court Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai.
The committee was constituted by the state government in April this year.
