Why Justice R C Chavan Quit Maharashtra UCC Panel

'If the intention was simply to replicate what's already been done elsewhere, there was no need for a committee at all -- there's already an Act passed there (in Uttarakhand); just copy it, paste it, and you're done. Why waste everyone's time convening a panel for that?'

Nine days after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's government constituted a seven-member committee -- headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Desai -- to draft Maharashtra's Uniform Civil Code, one of its members has walked out.

Justice R C Chavan, who spent eight years on the Bombay high court bench after his elevation in June 2005 and later chaired the Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, sent in his resignation on the evening of September 19, within hours of the committee's second sitting.

The state government accepted it on Monday, September 21.

In his resignation e-mail, Justice Chavan said the meeting's central task -- settling a questionnaire meant to gauge what the people of Maharashtra actually want from a common civil code -- had effectively been decided before members were consulted, and that a 'yes or no' format had been pushed through despite objections.

He also questioned the presence of an official from outside the state at a meeting where, he says, committee members "had no role to perform." A prolific writer of legal essays and fiction, Justice Chavan spoke to Prasanna D Zore/Rediff on why he felt he had become, in his own words, "of no use" to the panel.

'The chairperson (Ranjana Desai) responded only in monosyllables'

You have described serious concerns about the functioning of the Maharashtra UCC committee. What was the specific incident or sequence of events that ultimately convinced you that you should resign?

There's nothing beyond what I've already set out in my resignation letter, really. And let me correct one thing -- it isn't a question of things becoming unbearable. It's a question of being of no use. If you can't contribute meaningfully to something, what's the point of staying on?

Think about what the core of this entire endeavour is -- the Uniform Civil Code. It's meant to find out what the people of Maharashtra actually want, isn't it?

A survey is the most important part of that. Once we know what people want, only then do we draft the law.

Now, who are the experts at conducting a proper survey -- researchers, professors; certainly not judges. That's really where it began to go wrong.

The chairperson (Ranjana Desai) had drafted a questionnaire built entirely around yes-or-no answers, three of us tried to raise concerns during the meeting, and she responded only in monosyllables.

Once that happened, and once I realised there was no role left for the committee to play, I logged out, and after a brief discussion, sent in my resignation.

You have objected to the use of a 'Yes/No' format to seek public views on complex issues such as marriage and matrimonial disputes. What kind of consultation process, in your view, would have been more appropriate?

Drafting a questionnaire is a technical job. Some questions need to be direct; others need to be test questions, to check whether the answers people give are honest ones. It isn't simply a matter of yes or no.

There's an old book I'd recall here -- the American judge Jerome Frank wrote, back in the 1950s, in a book called Courts on Trial, that no businessman would ever run his affairs going by the kind of questions we put to a witness in cross-examination.

A yes-or-no questionnaire is exactly that -- it's like conducting a cross-examination without ever having had an examination-in-chief.

So what I suggested was straightforward: Send the draft to professors, let them prepare it properly, and only then upload it. We already have a professor on the committee, Dr Suvarna Rawal, principal of the Government Law College -- it didn't even need to go outside. She could have supervised it herself, perhaps with professors from the national law universities.

Justice S H Mehare (one of the seven members of the Maharashtra UCC panel; the others being Justice Ranjana Desai (retd) -- Chairperson, former Supreme Court judge; Justice R C Chavan (retd) -- former Bombay high court judge; D K Jain -- former chief secretary, Maharashtra; Virendra Saraf -- former advocate general of Maharashtra; Ramesh Patange -- Constitutional expert/social activist; Suvarna Rawal -- educationist) suggested some questions, I suggested a few too, but frankly, none of us on the committee are trained in drafting questionnaires. All I asked was that it be left to people who are.

'Unless you go into an exercise like this with genuine openness, you defeat the whole purpose'

Was your objection essentially about the questionnaire itself, or did it reflect a larger concern that the committee had already reached conclusions on some issues before adequately hearing all its members and stakeholders?

It reflects a larger concern. Unless you go into an exercise like this with genuine openness -- without predetermined answers already in mind -- you defeat the whole purpose of trying to gather people's actual views. That intention itself gets destroyed. It's rather like shutting something down before it's even had the chance to properly begin.

You have said that some matters were disposed of without substantive discussion. Can you give us specific examples of issues where you believe the committee did not deliberate adequately?

Just one, really, but it says a lot. We were meant to discuss the web site through which public feedback would be gathered. It was never shown to us. One official, Shatrughna Singh (former Uttarakhand chief secretary who headed the state government's rules-implementation and framing committee for the Uniform Civil Code), said he had seen it and had some suggestions, and the chairperson simply directed the state authorities to act on them. That was the end of the matter.

Honestly, the meeting itself wasn't even necessary. If the chairperson had already decided on the questionnaire the previous day, and if Mr (Shatrughna) Singh was the one deciding on the web site, then we had no role to play at all.

Why were we even called in? I wasn't going to sit there wasting my time.

You have also raised questions about the participation of a person who was not formally a member of the committee. Is that person Shatrughna Singh? What exactly happened at that meeting, and why did you consider that person's involvement problematic?

He (Shatrughna Singh) simply wasn't a member -- that's the crux of it. Yet he's the one who ends up deciding on the web site, something the rest of us hadn't even been shown.

Does that sound like a properly run meeting to you? If a committee has been constituted, its business has to be conducted in a particular manner -- decisions are taken by its members, and where there's a difference of opinion, it goes to a vote.

Here, we didn't even get to see the web site in question, and an outsider with no formal standing on this committee takes a call, orders are passed, and the matter is closed.

'If the intention was simply to replicate what's already been done elsewhere, there was no need for a committee at all'

What was your concern about this Shatrughna Singh's involvement, and did you feel it could affect the independence of the committee's deliberations?

It isn't really about him not being a member -- my concern runs deeper than that. Something may have worked successfully in a particular place, no issue with that. But if you try to lift the same formula and apply it elsewhere, without even examining whether there were shortcomings in how it was carried out there, what happens?

Blindly following something is never a good idea. And frankly, if the intention was simply to replicate what's already been done elsewhere, there was no need for a committee at all -- there's already an Act passed there (in Uttarakhand); just copy it, paste it, and you're done. Why waste everyone's time convening a panel for that?

From your experience as a former Bombay high court judge, what are the biggest Constitutional and legal questions Maharashtra will have to address before attempting to implement a Uniform Civil Code?

From my own experience, if this UCC exercise is to mean anything, it has to steer clear of religion and gender as organising categories altogether.

What it should really do is allow autonomy to persons who wish to come together -- to let them define the terms on which they do so, including how they build shared assets, how they divide them, and how they separate, if it comes to that.

That, to my mind, is the more honest and Constitutionally sound way to approach a common civil code, rather than starting from anyone's religious or gender identity.

If the government accepts your concerns but proceeds with the existing process...

Then it won't change anything. That matter is over as far as I'm concerned -- I'm out of it now, and I don't intend to keep bothering myself with it.

'I resigned precisely because I no longer had confidence in how the process was being run'

Having resigned from the committee, what would you advise the Maharashtra government to do now if it wants the UCC exercise to command confidence across communities and withstand constitutional scrutiny?

I resigned precisely because I no longer had confidence in how the process was being run -- so it isn't really for me to keep advising a committee I'm no longer part of. The committee will advise the government as it sees fit, and the government is perfectly competent to decide what it wants to do. It doesn't need my advice.