Wakf Act not being repealed: Govt

Government today said it was not repealing the Wakf Act 2013 even as two bills to repeal obsolete laws and amend some others was passed by Rajya Sabha.
Allaying apprehensions of senior Congress leader and former minorities affairs minister K Rahman Khan, Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda said the Wakf Act 2013 was not outdated.
"The Wakf Act 2013 is not obsolete. It is not being repealed," the Law Minister said. Khan had expressed concern and wanted to know whether the Centre was repealing the Act.
Observing that the Government has identified 1863 laws needed to be repealed, Gowda said these acts which needed to be repealed were identified by the Law Commission and discussed by respective nodal ministries.

The demand for sunset clause or automatic repealing process was also being looked into, he added.
Earlier, introducing the bills, Gowda said the government was coming up with the two bills to repeal obsolete laws and amend some Acts.

The Repealing and Amending bill 2014, which was passed by the Lok Sabha and referred to Select Committee of Rajya Sabha, aims to repeal 90 laws and pass amendments to two laws.
The Repealing and Amending bill 2015 seeks to repeal 36 obsolete laws that have been listed in the First Schedule of the Bill and pass two amendments to the acts, he said.

Initiating the debate on these two bills, Avinash Pande (Cong) opposed the move saying that it is "regressive measure" which the government is passing in "haste".
He alleged that the exercise was being carried out "to undo the work of the previous government" and the bills should be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee, saying these have been brought without proper consultation and there was no logic to repeal some laws that were introduced and implemented as recently as 2005.
Supporting the bills, Nadimul Haque (TMC) suggested to the government that there should be separate bills for repeal and amendment. "In fact, there should be an automatic repeal clause in the law and also time intervals for repealing."

A Naveethakrishnan (AIADMK) said the laws should be reviewed every two years and a report submitted to Parliament.
"Merely repealing and amending is of no use. Judgements given based on such laws should also be taken note of. There should be a separate law on this," he said.
Veer Singh (BSP) said that repealing of obsolete laws should be done anytime. "To repeal, it is not necessary that that law should be old."
Bhupinder Singh (BJD), Avinash Rai Khanna (BJP), Shadi Lal Batra (Congress) and K N Balagopal CPI(M) also participated in the debate.