Dear Friends,
Happy to inform you that your BPP Board Of Trustees were invited on ‘Khordadsal’ – August 21 to personally visit Delhi and discuss concerns on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in a consultative process set up by the 22nd Law Commission Of India with their Hon’ble Chairman – Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi (Retd.) and other appointed members of the Law Commission.
We had a very cordial,open & fruitful consultative meeting with the Commission. Our team of Trustees was very ably represented by Adv. Zerick Dastur – who was unanimously selected to be our spokesman to present our views to the Commission and also by Hanosh Mistry who supported building the entire body of logic around our views.
Our Vada Dasturji Dr. Firoze M. Kotwal and Ervad Dr. Parvez M.Bajan also joined the consultative discussions with the Law Commission through Video Conferencing on Zoom. Their presence was indeed very impressive.
Zerick reiterated the views we had shared with the Law Commission in our representation dated July 12, 2023. The submission made included amongst other things like:
- The critical need for us to retain our ethno centric religious identity
- Inseparable integration of our social life from our religion and our unique beliefs and traditions
- The over 1300 years of historical perspective and our reasons for migration to India to protect our religion, traditions and practices and unique identity
- The incomparable contributions made by Parsis in every aspect of Indian life
- The acknowledgements and protections given by successive Governments to retain the unique Parsi/Irani- Zoroastrian identity and the special legal carve-outs provided to Parsi/Irani Zoroastrians through special legislations.
- We also conveyed that we were sharing our apprehensions in absence of an actual draft of the UCC.
The Chairman Justice Awasthi was very appreciative of the efforts we had made. He reassured us of the Law Commission being very mindful of our need to protect our ethno-centric religious existence and of the twin principles we stressed on.
The consultative meeting lasted for 90 minutes. Your trustees also shared their thoughts with the Law Commission members. The meeting ended on a positive note with Vada Dasturji Dr. Kotwal and Ervad Dr. Bajan thanking the Commission for giving us time and a patient hearing. They conveyed their blessings for peace, happiness and prosperity of our motherland – India.
The Commission will proceed to now draft the actual Uniform Civil Code post such consultative meetings that are going on and will at the appropriate time be put up before the citizens of India for their view points, if any.
We will continue to monitor the situation and take necessary steps in the interest of our Parsi-Irani-Zoroastrian community.
Armaity Tirandaz
Dr. Adil Malia
Maharukh Nobel
Anahita Desai
Viraf Mehta
Hoshang Jal
Xerxes Dastur
TRUSTEES – BPP
