By Our Staff Reporter
DEHRADUN, 4 Feb: Uttarakhand cabinet on Sunday approved a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) draft two days after members of a high-powered committee submitted it to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.
The decision came at a meeting of the state cabinet which was presided over by the Chief Minister, official sources said.
A special session of the state assembly is being convened on Feb 5. The Chief Minister said the draft bill for the UCC would be brought in this session.
A UCC for Uttarakhand was one of the major poll planks of the BJP in the run-up to the state assembly elections held last year.
After being voted to power for a second consecutive term, Dhami gave his nod to setting up a committee headed by retired Supreme Court Judge Ranjana Prakash Desai to prepare the draft of the UCC at the very first cabinet meeting.
The expert panel whose tenure was extended for a fourth time recently has taken the opinions of 2.33 lakh people and those of different organizations, institutions and tribal groups before preparing the draft.
Meanwhile, BJP state president Mahendra Bhatt has expressed gratitude to the Chief Minister for his announcement on the UCC bill to be brought in the state assembly in the coming session.
