As the Narendra Modi government moves ahead to weed out archaic laws, a peeved Law Ministry has shot off a letter to all Union ministries pointing out that "several" of them have failed to help the Law Commission compile a list of obsolete statutes.
The Law Ministry has asked secretaries of various central ministries and departments to appoint a nodal officer each to "actively interact" with the Law Commission to expedite the process of weeding out obsolete laws and rules which are clogging the statute books.
"As you may be aware, the government is committed to simplifying the laws and reducing the number of laws in the country...The Chairman, Law Commission has informed that the Commission had issued letters to secretaries of various ministries/departments requesting them to prepare an exhaustive list of all the laws/Acts...He has further stated that several ministries have not responded till date in spite of several reminders," Law Secretary P K Malhotra said in a recent letter.
The Law Commission had written to various ministries in May, 2012 to come out with a list of laws they think should be repealed.
While the Law Ministry had mandated the Law Commission to recommend laws that can be repealed, Prime Minister Modi had last month constituted a separate committee to identify "obsolete" laws which he believes hamper governance by creating "avoidable confusion".
