By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, July 9: Senior advocate, Erwin K. Sutnga said the proposed enactment of Article 44 of the Constitution, commonly known as the UCC, will have serious repercussions on the rights of tribals and minorities and Part III (Fundamental Rights) will be done away with and what will remain will be a watered down version.
In a petition submitted to the Law Commission of India, Sutnga said the implementation of a UCC is totally at variance with the basic features of the Constitution that protects the rights of tribals and minorities. “If imposed on us it can only become a mechanism of oppression and tyranny of the brute majority of non-tribals against tribals and minorities,” he said.
“Our personal law of inheritance, marriage, religious beliefs, language, social customs and unique private ownership of land, which belongs to the people and not to the government, is the hallmark of our identity as a matrilineal society. These will be totally denied in the harsh embrace of a patriarchal system which will manifest itself in the guise of a UCC,” he said.
“It is my considered opinion that instead of solidifying the unity of the people of India a UCC will bring in more confusion and disunity. It will totally destroy the fabric of India as a diverse country united by the magnanimity and liberalism of the Constitution of India as it exists today,” he argued.
“I am sure that the Law Commission of India will seriously consider these submissions in view of the serious and deleterious constitutional consequences that the imposition of a UCC will have on the unity of India as well as the destructive consequences on the Constitution of India itself,” he added.