Common law?

[urbestfriend]

Why there is separate set of laws in India for Hindus, Muslims or Christians ? In a true democratic setup like us where we proud ourselves of state being independent of class,creed and religion, these laws doesn't make any sense. Why can't we have same set of law applies to all citizens irrespective of religion. As chaand muhmed or shoaib-ayesha incident shows us, Muslim personal law is prone to misuse. One quazi says telephone nikah is valid, other says it is not. One cleric says no need to take permission from first wife to marry again , other says one should. If you're a Hindu or christian, you can't marry more than once but if you convert to Islam, you can marry upto four. Isn't it ridiculous? I haven't seen court taking the advice from Hindu priests in such cases when Hindus are involved. Why this for Muslims?

[dev.goswami]

Well is mostly because at the time of the drafting of the Indian Constitution all religions had shown equal because ours was a secular nation. Its not that we have different laws made for different religions. These laws have existed since ages in various forms(mostly books) which have been incorporated into the Indian Constitution. PS: I say this according to my understanding of what has been taught to me till now in the subject of Political Science.

[ViruRulez]

It is common law in India except in religious, marriage etc. matters I suppose .. I agree with your point and I personally would prefer it .. especially about the multiple marriage thing .... even CM like Karunanidhi has multiple wives and so does many other celebrities throughout India .. so then again the Hindu marriage law of only one wife might have some problems too as several celebrities from the Hindu religion also have two or more wives .. I personally want it to be made strict and common law where only one man can marry one wife at a time and he has to divorce in order to marry another .. in regards to the religious laws etc. regarding marriage I think it should be made that every marriage has to be registered officially with the government in order to be acceptable in court of law .. it can be done through any religious customs but it should be made mandatory to be registered in proper govt. channels in order for it to be applicable

[urbestfriend]

^^ Right! Marriage laws should be same for all , one should marry again with the consent of first spouse. Marriage registration should be made compulsory else marriage should be deemed void. There are inheritance laws which are dependent on religion of a person which I think is not necessary. Religion based personal laws always complicate matter. What if one spouse is Hindu and other is Christian? what happens when one voluntarily converts from one religion to other? We have come a long way where we can move away from religious laws be it Hindu, muslim or christian.A true democratic and secular setup should have its laws independent of religion.

[ViruRulez]

^^^ I wont deny ... we have gone a long way but I think there is still need of more education and development before such laws can be implemented .. there are many laws which should be implemented but I am not sure if this is the right time as more education and literacy would be required for people to understand the benefits of the laws .. and secondly laws should be made strict and binding which is not the case with our nation as we know

[Nova]

I agree. Make just one law. Politicians don't have the guts to do it...the whole thing trickles down to vote banks.

[yoda]

as long as there is something called a "vote bank", these religion based laws will never change. oops...just realized tdigi said the same thing above.