Gujarat's civil code is Act 15 of 2026, and it still has no start date

Gujarat's Uniform Civil Code is now Act 15 of 2026, and it is not yet in force. President Droupadi Murmu assented on 17 September. The state published the assent in an extraordinary gazette dated 1 October. The act itself says it starts on a date the state government notifies. That date has not been notified.

The assembly passed the bill on 24 March after a debate of more than seven hours. Assent took almost six months. Publication took another fortnight after assent. The gap between a March vote and an October gazette is the period in which the Union government held a state law that rewrites marriage, divorce, succession and live-in relationships. Gujarat is the second state to get a code of this kind onto the statute book, after Uttarakhand. Commencement is a separate act.

The text applies to the whole state and to residents of Gujarat who live outside it. It excludes members of Scheduled Tribes notified under Article 342, and groups whose customary rights sit under Part XXI of the Constitution. Everyone else is in. Bigamy is prohibited. Sons and daughters take equal shares. Marriages may still be solemnised by custom, rite or religion. They must also be registered. For marriages after commencement, the memorandum goes in within 60 days. Wilful failure draws a fine of up to 10,000 rupees.

Live-in relationships are the chapter with criminal penalties, not only fines. A couple that stays in such a relationship for more than a month without filing the statement under the registration clause can, on conviction, face up to three months in jail, a fine of up to 10,000 rupees, or both. A false statement, or the withholding of a material fact, can draw three months or 25,000 rupees. Ignoring a registrar's notice can draw six months or 25,000 rupees. Consent obtained by force, coercion or fraud can draw five years. A child of a live-in relationship is legitimate. A major who lives with a minor is sent to the POCSO Act.

Those numbers are the part a couple can plan around, once a start date exists. Until the gazette notification of commencement, the 60-day clock and the one-month clock are not running. The political fact and the legal fact have come apart. The government can say the code has presidential assent. A registrar cannot yet refuse a file, because the file is not yet required.

Uttarakhand's code is the comparison Gujarat's text will be judged against, and the two are not identical in their start. Uttarakhand has had to build registers, rules and a portal before criminal clauses could be used. Gujarat has published the act and stopped. Rules under a code of this length are a second document: forms, fees, the registrar's office, the appeal. None of that is in the 1 October gazette.

The exclusion of Scheduled Tribes is the constitutional compromise written into the act. A uniform code that exempts the communities Part XXI already protects is less uniform than the title. It is also the reason a tribal challenge is harder to mount. The challenges that will come, once commencement is notified, are likelier to be about the live-in clauses and about the reach to Gujaratis living in other states. A resident of Mumbai who keeps a house in Ahmedabad will want to know which registrar wants the form.

The missing date is the story of this week. Assent on 17 September and publication on 1 October finish the Union's part. The state's part is a one-line notification. Until that line appears, Act 15 is law on paper and not law in a registrar's office.