Repealing and Amending(Fourth) Bill 2015: Value

Repealing and Amending(Fourth) Bill 2015: Value

Question: The Repealing and Amending(Fourth) Bill 2015 will be introduced shortly in the LS. Examine its value.

- Repealing and Amending(Fourth) Bill 2015 will be introduced in the Parliament for annulling 295 obsolete acts several of which are over 30 years old

- Taking forward the exercise of repealing close to 3,000 irrelevant laws clogging statute books, Centre approved the bill scrapping 295 obsolete laws dealing with a host of issues from marriage law to cement hoarding

- Repealing and Amending (Fourth) Bill 2015 is for declaring these laws obsolete as they have been adjudged redundant by the concerned central Ministries

- While one bill deals with amendment in marital laws, another aims at checking hoarding and black marketing of cement

- Measures seek to repeal enactments that are not in force or have become obsolete or whose retention as a separate Act is not required.

- Such bills are used to correct flaws in laws

- Data compiled by the Legislative Department of the Law Ministry indicates close to 125 archaic laws have been repealed

- Once these bills are cleared, another 945 laws including 758 appropriate acts will be repealed

- Above the 945 laws, Law Ministry has identified around 1871 more laws which are losing relevance in current times

Facts and Stats

- This is the first time since the year 2001 that such an exercise has been undertaken by the law Ministry

- Between 1950 as well as 2001, around 100 acts were repealed

- A bill to repeal 758 appropriation acts including Railways Appropriation Act which are no longer relevant, was introduced in the LS recently

- Appropriation Acts are required to operate for a restricted time period of one financial year only