DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 549
Government to codify the Hindu law ? My respectful submission is that there exists none and there is no justification for this attempt at codification of Hindu law.
So far as the history of codification goes, this is not the first time that an attempt has been made. I would respectfully invite the attention of the House to the various efforts that have been made during the British rule for the codification of Hindu law and submit that on each such occasion the matter was deferred and for very cogent and sound reason. As early as 1833, a Commission was appointed by Royal Charter. In the year 1853 a Law Commission was appointed. The reports of these Commissions published in the year
1856 turned down the proposal for the codification of Hindu law on the ground that it would be a vain attempt and that it would stunt the growth and development of Hindu law. Similarly, in the year
1861 and again in 1921 the Secretary of State for India in the former case and the Governor-General of India with the sanction of the Secretary of State in the latter case appointed Law Commissions. Their decision on the point of codification was identical with the findings of the Law Commissions. On 23rd March 1921, one distinguished Member of this House tabled a non-official resolution requiring the appointment of a Commission for the purposes of codifying Hindu Law. When that motion was debated in this House the Department of Law was in the hands of a very distinguished scholar on Hindu Law and a jurist of eminence, I mean Dr. Tej Bhadur Sapru. The motion whether codification was essential or not, was necessary or not, would be to the good of Hindu society or not, was hotly debated. I would respectfully invite the attention of the House and of the Honourable the Law Minister to the reply given on behalf of Government by Sir T. B. Sapru who was himself an authority on Hindu Law. He pointed out that the codification of laws of the personal laws of the community was not an easy matter, that it was a stupendous task and one which would entail the best energies of the best legal talents for centuries. He invited the attention of the House to the German Code which was drafted and codified after
50 years of labour, from 1834 to 1896 and to the fact no less than three Commissions drafted the Code. He pointed out that it was not until 1896 that the final form of the German Code was reduced to writing and after a continuous hard struggle for and against codification between the two sections of eminent German jurists represented on the one hand by Savogry and on the other by Thebaut