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In what he called a “historic moment”, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami tabled the State’s Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill in the Assembly on Tuesday. The Opposition termed it a “poll gimmick”.
If the Bill is passed, Uttarakhand will become the first State in independent India to enact a uniform law on all communities with regard to marriage, divorce, succession, and live-in relationships.
In fact, Goa also has a uniform civil code for people from all religions as it retained the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867 after its liberation in 1961.
However, the Scheduled Tribes, who constitute 2.9% of the State’s population, have been kept out of the ambit of this Bill.
According to Mr. Dhami, the Bill would end “evil practices” such as ‘Halala’ and ‘Iddat’. Apart from matters related to divorce, the Bill has provisions on live-in relationships and property inheritance.
Under the UCC, marriages will only take place only between one man and one woman. Special attention has been paid to the rights of children and their protection, whether legitimate or illegitimate. The age of marriage has been set at 21 years for boys and 18 years for girls.
T.N. backs Kerala suit in SC against Centre’s move to ‘stifle’ States (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin wrote to his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday, appreciating the State for moving the Supreme Court against the Union government’s attempts to “stifle State governments” over finances, and further hoped to collaborate to address this “crucial challenge”.
Mr. Stalin said Tamil Nadu faced a revenue shortfall of ₹20,000 crore per annum in comparison with the pre-GST regime, and that the Union had been refusing to extend the compensation regime.
Criticising the “discriminatory and unconstitutional attempts” pushed by the Centre, he said its intent seemed to be aimed at “crippling” States’ abilities to raise resources and fund crucial developmental initiatives. This needs to be resisted by like-minded progressive States.
Mr. Stalin said although this had been happening for quite some time, the situation had rapidly deteriorated in the past few years and there was a clear consensus emerging among progressive State governments that such indirect control over finances needed to be removed.
Editorial
Union government’s reins on financial transfers to States (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Ever since the start of the Fourteenth Finance Commission award period (2015-16), the Union government has been reducing financial transfers to States.
This is particularly strange given that the Fourteenth Finance Commission recommended devolving 42% of Union tax revenues to States, which is a clean 10 percentage points increase over the 13th Finance Commission’s recommendation.
The Fifteenth Finance Commission retained this recommendation of 41%, excluding the devolution to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and Ladakh, which were recategorised as Union Territories.
If we include the shares of J&K and Ladakh, it should be 42%. The Union government not only reduced the financial transfers to States but also increased its own total revenue to increase its discretionary expenditure.
The discretionary expenditures of the Union government are not being routed through the States’ Budgets, and, therefore, can impact different States in different ways.
The Finance Commissions recommend the States’ share in the net tax revenue of the Union government. The difference between the gross and the net tax revenue includes collection costs, tax revenue to be assigned to Union territories, and cess and surcharges.
Though the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Finance Commissions recommended 42% and 41%, respectively, of the net tax revenue to be the shares of States, the share of the gross tax revenue was just 35% in 2015-16 and 30% in 2023-24 (Budget Estimate).
While the gross tax revenue of the Union government increased from ₹14.6 lakh crore in 2015-16 to ₹33.6 lakh crore in 2023-24, the States’ share in the Union tax revenue increased from ₹5.1 lakh crore to ₹10.2 lakh crore between these two years.
Opinion
The severe erosion of fiscal federalism (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
On February 8, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will lead a protest in New Delhi against the Centre for “placing Kerala on a financial embargo”.
The Kerala government has accused the Centre of pushing the State into a severe financial crisis by imposing a limit on its borrowings.
Kerala has moved the Supreme Court contending that the Centre’s imposition of a Net Borrowing Ceiling (NBC) on the State, which limits borrowings from all sources, violates Article 293 of the Constitution.
The wide array of constitutional issues that are now thrown open point at the severe erosion of fiscal federalism in the country.
The NBC limits the borrowings of States from all sources including open market borrowings. The Centre has decided to deduct liabilities arising from the public account of the States to arrive at the NBC.
In addition, borrowings by state-owned enterprises, where the principal and/or interest are serviced out of the Budget, or through assignment of taxes or cess or any other State revenue, are also deducted from the NBC.
Text & Context
Understanding the delimitation exercise (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The delimitation of constituencies for the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies is to be carried out on the basis of the first Census after 2026.
The 2021 Census was originally postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently due to delays on the part of the Central government.
Delimitation means the process of fixing the number of seats and boundaries of territorial constituencies in each State for the Lok Sabha and Legislative assemblies.
It also includes determining the seats to be reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in these houses. Article 82 and 170 of the Constitution provide that the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative assemblies as well as its division into territorial constituencies shall be readjusted after each Census.
This ‘delimitation process’ is performed by the ‘Delimitation Commission’ that is set up under an act of Parliament. Such an exercise was carried out after the 1951, 1961 and 1971 Census.
‘Democracy’ means ‘rule or government by the people’. It follows that the government is elected by a majority with the broad principle of ‘one citizen-one vote-one value’.
The number of seats in the Lok Sabha based on the 1951, 1961 and 1971 Census was fixed at 494, 522 and 543, when the population was 36.1, 43.9 and 54.8 crore respectively. This broadly translated to an average population of 7.3, 8.4 and 10.1 lakh per seat respectively.
However, it has been frozen as per the 1971 Census in order to encourage population control measures so that States with higher population growth do not end up having higher number of seats. This was done through the 42nd Amendment Act till the year 2000 and was extended by the 84th Amendment Act till 2026.
Hence, the population based on which the number of seats is allocated refers to the population as per the 1971 Census. This number will be re-adjusted based on the first Census after 2026.
The boundaries of territorial constituencies were readjusted (without changing the number of seats) and seats for SC and ST were determined as per the 2001 Census and will again be carried out after 2026.
News
Lok Sabha passes anti-cheating Bill (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Lok Sabha passed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024, to check malpractices and organised cheating in government recruitment exams. The Bill proposes a minimum of three years imprisonment and a fine up to ₹1 crore.
Replying to a debate on the Bill that was passed after a brief discussion, Union Minister for Personnel Jitendra Singh said that he wanted to clarify that no candidate will be harassed as the legislation is against people who misuse the system.
“There is no attempt to centralise the system. When an examination is cancelled, it affects the students, their years are wasted. While a time-bound completion of such [cancelled] examinations may not be assured, the efforts are on.
Affluent among sub-castes could be omitted from quota list, observes SC (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
A seven-judge Constitution Bench questioned why affluent sub-castes among backward classes should not be “excluded” from the reservation list and made to compete with the general category.
Justice Nath said that these advanced sub-castes could exit the domain of reservation to make room for sub-castes who were relatively more marginalised or most backward. “The remaining sub-castes who are still backward, let them have reservation.
Once a person gets into IPS or IAS, his children do not suffer from the disadvantages of others from his group who live in a village. Yet his family will get the benefits of reservation for generations,” Justice B.R. Gavai, on the Bench, remarked.
He added that it was for the Parliament to decide whether a “powerful or influential” group should be excluded from the quota list or not.
Chief Justice Chandrachud indicated that exclusion may be implicit in the concept of reservation. The forward classes were necessarily excluded while reserving seats for backward classes, but this was approved by the Constitution as the nation believed in substantive equality, the Chief Justice observed orally.
The seven-judge Bench is examining the question of whether States can identify and sub-classify groups within the Scheduled Castes (SC) who deserve greater reservation.
Rajya Sabha passes Bills to add PVTGs of Odisha, A.P. in ST lists (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order Amendment Bill, 2024 and Constitution (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Order Amendment Bill, 2024.
The passage of the Bill cleared the way for the addition of many new communities to the ST list of Odisha and the inclusion of synonyms and phonetic variations of existing tribes in the ST lists of both Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Both Bills got support from MPs across party lines.
Among the additions were notably seven Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) (a subset of STs) — four in Odisha and three in Andhra Pradesh — whose independent names had been specifically added as synonyms or sub-tribes of communities already on the ST lists of these States.
While replying to the discussion on the Bills for Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, which were taken up together, Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda took a dig at previous non-NDA governments for considering the most vulnerable STs — the PVTGs — as tribals just in name but never thinking about including them as entries in the ST lists.
Business
‘Tax-to-GDP ratio to hit all-time high of 11.7% of GDP in FY25’ (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s tax-to-GDP ratio is expected to hit a record high of 11.7% of GDP in 2024-25, led by an uptick in the more ‘equitable’ direct taxes, and the government will continue to simplify and rationalise the tax regime to reduce disputes, litigation and intrusive means of enforcement, Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra has said.
Noting that frequent changes in tax rates “don’t help”, Mr. Malhotra said corporate and personal income taxes have been reduced, and he was hopeful that a high proportion of income tax payers will opt for the new tax regime that doesn’t allow deductions but offers a higher tax-free income threshold.
Growth in Personal Income Tax collections stands at 28% so far this year, and may moderate to 20%-22% by the end of March, the Secretary said.
Onthe prospects for rationalising the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates, the Revenue Secretary said that a Group of Ministers (GoM) tasked by the GST Council to review the rate structure has been reconstituted, but small changes to rationalise rates on different items are a continuing exercise in the Council. The GST Council is expected to meet every quarter and should meet soon, but no date has been fixed yet.
World
Houthis’ uncrewed surface vessels a new threat (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
The ongoing tensions in the Red Sea are seeing the emergence of a new trend, the increasing use of Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USV) by Houthis to target ships in the high seas.
U.S. military destroyed two explosive-laden USVs. The first instance of a USV use since the beginning of Houthi attacks on commercial shipping was in the first week of January, according to the U.S. military.
“CENTCOM Self-Defence Strikes On February 5, at approximately 3:30 p.m. (Sana’a time), U.S. Central Command forces conducted a strike in self-defence against two Houthi explosive USVs. U.S. forces identified the explosive USVs in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined they presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region,” U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) posted on social media platform ‘X’.
On the measures in place to thwart such attacks, Indian Navy sources said that force protection measures are in place for both surface and aerial threats in case such a threat was to arise.