Way back in 2013, the State Legislature had come to the conclusion that many laws enacted over a period of time in the State were redundant or were not in line with the needs and the spirit of the time. Laws are generally made to respond to situations that arise in the course of history of a nation. However, the dynamics of a society is such that situations change and the mechanism governing or controlling the situations also need to be adapted accordingly. This is sheer pragmatism. When laws become redundant, these have to be discarded and replaced with new laws that carry utility for the contemporary society.
In 2013 the legislature resolved that the State should have a Law Commission to examine the entire corpus of law and sift the trash from the usable. This was supposed to be the first Law Commission and as such hopes were raised among the legal luminaries that there would be pruning and superfluous stuff would be discarded. More than three years have gone by and the Law Commission is nowhere in sight. The result is that the baggage of unusable laws continues to be carried on the back by legal practitioners and the State to the detriment of society. After making the announcement of establishing Law Commission in the Legislative Assembly during the Budget Session held in March 2013 the then Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs reiterated the same in the 4th meeting of the Advisory Council of the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms at Union Capital on June 24, 2013. This triggered an exercise at the Law Department, where the blue print was drafted and then submitted to the Finance and Planning Departments for concurrence. Thereafter, the proposal went on shuttling between the two departments for more than a year and half. Many questions were raised and many complicacies were created. One pertained to the question of manpower for the Law Commission. There were varying opinions on the quantum of manpower. This only showed that the concerned departments were hardly serious about the inception of the Commission and treated the matter laconically. Finally, the file reached the Cabinet on June 4, 2014 which deferred a decision on the subject.
A question was asked in the current session of the Legislative Assembly on the position of the proposal but the Government came out with stereotype answer which did not convince anybody. The patent rhetoric of the Government is that the matter is under consideration or the Government is looking into the matter etc. cannot satisfy anybody. It is also said that the Law Department may submit fresh proposal to the GAD for the consideration of the Cabinet but as far as our information goes, no fresh proposal has been received by the GAD so far.
It remains to be said that amendments and revisions of the enacted laws is a continuing process and in normal course redundant laws should get scrapped. The last review was conducted six years ago and about 13 existing laws were discarded then. We feel that the State will be harmed by deferring the revision of existing laws indefinitely and as such the Government should change its stance and view the issue from larger point of view.
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