With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis on removing outdated laws, the Union Ministry of Law and Justice will introduce a Bill in the Winter Session of Parliament to repeal another 287 obsolete statutes. The Law Ministry has sent a draft bill in this regard for inter-ministerial consultations. The ministry is also working overtime to ensure that 700-plus Appropriation Acts are properly junked. Used to authorise expenditures, the Appropriation Acts are intended to operate for a limited period of time and lose relevance. “While a Bill is pending in Parliament to repeal 32 amendment Acts and four principal Acts, we plan to bring another bill to repeal 287 similar Acts,” Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters here. All these are simple amending acts, which, since the amendments have become part of the main act, are otherwise of little relevance. Prasad said the Law Ministry is also planning to carry out “legal scavenging” to repeal 700-plus Appropriation Acts which remain on statute books though they have lost relevance. “We are consulting the Finance Ministry. I have asked my department to take a considered legal view on repealing these Appropriation Acts,” he said. During the course of its study on archaic laws, the Law Commission found that a large number of Appropriation Acts passed during past several years have lost their meaning but are still shown on statute books. Law Ministry sources said the task of repealing such laws would be initiated after the committee constituted by Prime Minister’s Office to identify “obsolete” laws which hamper governance by creating “avoidable confusion” submits its report. This committee is examining all Acts recommended to be repealed by the Committee on Review of Administrative Laws which had been appointed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998.
