Fresh bill in next session to repeal 287 archaic laws: Govt

Giving a fresh push to weed out archaic laws, Law Ministry will bring a new bill in Winter session of Parliament to repeal another 287 obsolete statutes even as it works overtime to ensure that 700 Appropriation Acts which have lost relevance are junked.
"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.
Based on the recommendation of the Law Commission, the Law Ministry is planning to carry out "legal scavenging" to repeal 700 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.
"It is common knowledge that Appropriation Acts are intended to operate for a limited period of time-authorising expenditures for the duration of one financial year, or less, for example in the case of Vote on Account Bills. Though these Acts are not usually included in any list of Central Acts, either by the Ministry of Law and Justice, or elsewhere, these laws still technically remain on the books," the Commission had said in its recent interim report on obsolete laws.

It said repealing Appropriation Acts whose terms have ended will in no way cause any negative impact on actions that were validly taken under these Acts.
"As a caution and not entertaining scope of any doubt it may be safe to recommend that only those Appropriation Acts that are older than certain date, say 10 years, may be repealed. This itself would result in the repeal of more than 700 laws," the law panel had said.