Former Bombay High Court judge Justice RC Chavan (retd) has resigned from the Maharashtra Government’s committee tasked with preparing a draft framework for implementing the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), citing serious reservations over its decision to restrict public feedback on key social issues to a “yes/no” format.In a letter to committee chairperson Justice Ranjana Desai (retd), Chavan criticised the panel’s approach, saying reducing complex social issues such as delayed marriages, infertility, marital instability and rising matrimonial disputes to binary responses undermined the very objective of building consensus.Chavan said while one of the agenda items at a committee meeting was to finalise the questionnaire, the chairperson had already circulated a set of questions approved by her and informed members that the questionnaire would be uploaded once the website became operational.The former judge said he was initially under the impression that the committee’s objective was to gather the views of Maharashtra’s people and build consensus on issues such as delayed marriages, infertility, unstable marriages and the slow pace of dispute resolution.“Now that the misunderstanding is removed, I realise that the aim is merely to provide an opportunity to people who may care to share their responses in a ‘yes or no’ format so that analysis of the data becomes easy,” the letter stated.In July, the state government constituted a seven-member committee headed by the retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Ranjana Desai, to draft a framework for implementing the UCC, which seeks to provide a common set of laws across religious communities on matters such as marriage, divorce and inheritance.Justice Chavan resigned from the panel on September 19. In his resignation letter, he raised several concerns and alleged that meetings were being concluded without substantive discussions.According to him, agenda items such as confirmation of minutes, modifications to the committee’s website and finalisation of the questionnaire were disposed of swiftly at the chairperson’s direction. He also questioned the involvement of an officer from outside Maharashtra in the panel’s work.