Unhappy over the reluctance by several Ministries to share information on archaic laws required to be weeded out, the Union law Ministry has shot a letter to all its counterparts to cooperate with the law Commission in this task.
The letter written by law Secretary PK Malhotra to secretaries of various Ministries and Departments under the Central government required them to appoint a nodal officer to “actively interact” with the law Commission in order to expedite the task entrusted to the Commission.
The letter followed after the law Commission Chairman complained of not making any headway with regard to removing obsolete laws from the statute books. “As you may be aware, the government is committed to simplifying the laws and reducing the number of laws in the country...The Chairman, law Commission has informed that the Commission had issued letters to secretaries of various ministries/departments requesting them to prepare an exhaustive list of all the laws/Acts... several ministries have not responded till date in spite of several reminders,” Malhotra, in his letter said.
law Commission in May, 2012 urged all Ministries to submit a list of laws that required to be repealed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last month constituted a separate committee to identify “obsolete” laws which he believed hampered governance by creating “avoidable confusion”.
Earlier, the Committee on Review of Administrative laws appointed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government in 1998 had identified 1382 Acts for repeal. Modi said only 415 Acts were repealed so far. The NDA has already introduced The Repealing and Amending Bill, 2014 in lok Sabha during the Budget session to repeal 36 Acts.
This is the first time since 2001 that such an exercise is being undertaken by the law Ministry. The Amendment Acts which are sought to be repealed through the Bill include amendments to the Representation of the People Act, Marriage Act, Election laws, Divorce laws and Anand Marriage Act and the Evidence Act. Two of the stand alone Acts which will also be repealed through the bill are Foreign Jurisdiction Act, 1947, and Sugar Undertaking (Taking Over of Management) Act.