Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said his government wants to ban polygamy and announced that an expert committee has been formed to look into this.
Sarma said on Tuesday that his government is not going through the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) but wants to ban polygamy under a State Act. "Assam government has decided to form an expert committee to investigate whether the state government has the authority to prohibit polygamy in the region," news agency ANI quoted him as saying.
The committee will engage in extensive discussions with all stakeholders, including legal experts, to arrive at a well-informed decision, he said. "The committee will scrutinize the provisions of The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act, 1937, along with Article 25 of the Constitution of India, in relation to the directive principle of state policy for a uniform civil code."
A few months ago, the Supreme Court had said it would form a five-judge Constitution bench to hear pleas challenging the constitutional validity of polygamy and the practice of 'nikah halala' among the members of the Muslim community.
A few days ago, during an election campaign in Karnataka, the Assam CM had spoken about the practice of polygamy. "Today the country is developing; then how among Muslims, one husband marries four women? We are happy when two or three children are born, but if you tell a woman to give birth to 10-12 children, then it sounds like a baby-making machine," he was quoted as saying.