Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court on Monday rejected a plea challenging the constitution of a committee by the state government to assess the need for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), holding it can not interfere with functions of the executive.
The HC maintained the panel’s formation, announced early this year, was purely a policy decision taken by the Gujarat government.
While rejecting the plea filed by Surat-based petitioner Abdul Vahab Sopariwala, a division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice D N Ray held that the court can not interfere with the executive’s functions as laid down under Article 162 of the Constitution.
Sopariwala’s petition was earlier rejected by a single judge bench of the HC, which also cited the Article 162 of the statute book, which defines the extent of a state’s executive power. The chief justice noted that the single judge bench had “rightly recorded that the constitution of the committee is purely an executive function of the state government under Article 162 of the Constitution and would be outside the purview of judicial review”.
“Under Article 162 of the Constitution, the government holds such power. So, the separation of power principle has to apply. We do not have any power of judicial review in such functions which are purely in the domain of the state,” the bench observed.
“The scope of judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution does not permit us to enter into the prohibited arena of executive functions under Article 162 as it would be against the basic structure of the Constitution,” the division bench noted.
On February 4 this year, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel announced the formation of a committee to assess the necessity of a UCC in Gujarat and also to draft a bill for it.
The panel is chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Desai and its members include ex-IAS officer C L Meena, advocate R C Kodekar, former Vice-Chancellor of a state university Dakshesh Thakar and social activist Geetaben Shroff.
Surat resident Sopariwala approached the High Court challenging the formation of the committee and seeking a HC direction for its reconstitution arguing there was no representation from minority communities in the panel.
However, in July, a single bench of Justice Niral R Mehta rejected Sopariwala’s plea, saying the “UCC committee has been constituted purely by an executive order under Article 162 of the Constitution and it would be within the absolute domain of the state government.”
Sopariwala challenged the single judge order before the division bench headed by the chief justice, contending the committee had been formed by the government without issuing any notification.
“My submission is that without any notification, the state government declared they are constituting a committee. The government cannot act in this manner without publishing any notification,” petitioner’s lawyer Zameer Shaikh told the division bench during arguments on Monday.
Not convinced by Shaikh’s arguments, the chief justice said, “We exercise power of judicial review in a case where the executive fails to perform their duties or they exceed their jurisdiction. This is purely a policy decision, or executive function, and the court is not supposed to interfere”.