Team Herald
NEW DELHI: The Law Commission has borrowed heavily from the 2-volume ‘Family laws of Goa, Daman and Diu’ penned by senior advocate Manohar Sinai Usgaocar (83) for inclusion in the questionnaire to be released shortly for a public debate on implementation of a uniform civil code in the country.
The questionnaire is to be issued to seek views of stakeholders on replacing the existing laws concerning marriages, divorce, succession and other issues with a single civil code alike the Goa Civil Code that was largely adopted from the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867 and applied in the State irrespective of their religion, ethnicity or linguistic affiliation.
The Law Commission has already procured a copy of the English translation of the Codigo Civil Portugues but it found the 2-volume book of Usgaoncar, a former additional solicitor general, in English as quite useful in comparing the Goan law with the existing different laws like the Hindu, Muslim and Parsi laws.
It has also approached Usgaoncar, an authority on the Portuguese law, if he can provide a copy of his recent translation of all 2538 articles of the Portugese civil code. It has also shown interest in understanding from him the law of Portuguese civil procedure that can cut down backlog of the court cases as it envisages written arguments to cut down time in disposal of the cases, a Commission official said.
Headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice B S Chauhan, the Law Commission was officially requested by the Modi government in June to examine if a uniform civil code can be framed to replace different personal laws for different religious communities. The Commission has since received requests from many organisations for audience on the subject. “Once we post the questionnaire on our website, we shall give audience to all the stakeholders,” the commission official said.
The State Legislative Assembly recently passed a bill replacing the old Portuguese Civil Code with the Goa Succession, Special Notaries and Inventory Proceeding Bill, 2012.
