Over 40 years after Odisha repealed more than a hundred obsolete and redundant Acts through Odisha Repealing Act 1976, the state government is planning to undertake a similar exercise to repeal of about 700 Acts and laws.
A proposal moved by the law department to various departments of Odisha government early this week has proposed whether 699 laws that were passed between 1973 and 2016 need to be repealed as many of them may have become obsolete and redundant.
Principal secretary of law department Shashikant Mishra, in his proposal to various departments, asked them to draw up a schedule of discussion for the repealing of unnecessary legislation from the statute book.
“We have asked the departments to give their suggestions on whether the 699 Acts and laws that we have sent them need to be repealed. Once we get their reply then we would move the state law commission to examine them for further action. This would take a considerable time as lots of discussion needs to take place,” he said.
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{{/usCountry}}The law department has asked 33 departments whether the Acts (amendment acts and validation acts) have become redundant and obsolete over the passage of time and whether any provisions of the Act is currently under challenge by any court. It has also asked whether any provisions of the Acts that can be repealed are yet to be brought into force and if any provisions of the Act are independent of the principal Acts and are necessary.
The departments that have been sent the list of Acts that can be repealed are finance, housing and urban development, parliamentary affairs, Panchayati raj and drinking water, revenue and disaster management, public works, home, steel and mines, water resources, general administration and public grievances, rural development, among others.
The last time Odisha had repealed over 100 old and obsolete Acts was in 1978 when the Janata Party government, headed by the then chief minister Nilamani Routray, was in power in the state. In Centre, the Narendra Modi government has repealed more than 1,400 obsolete Acts after it came to power in 2014. The move came after the Law Commission found that a large number of Appropriation Acts passed earlier still continued.
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Among the 699 Acts and laws that the Odisha Repealing Bill 2020 wants to scrap is the Odisha Lokpal and Lokayuktas (Amendment)Act, 1983 that has become redundant after Odisha Lokayukta Act 2015 came into existence. Similarly, Acts like the Orissa Police Amendment Act, 1976 - which regulates black-marketing in cinema halls - and Orissa Police Amendment Act, 1975 - which made it liable for people of an area to pay penalty if they failed to provide timely help in case of destruction of property - have also gone redundant.
Likewise, Acts such as Orissa Eyes (Authorities for use for therapeutic purposes) Act, 1985, is no longer valid after Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act was passed by the Parliament in 1994. Other Acts, like Orissa Fireworks and Loudspeakers Amendment Act 1979 that empowered the district collectors to stop display of fireworks and use of loudspeaker in an area for six months, is being seen as archaic and redundant. Similarly, at least eight Acts under Bihar Odisha Excise Amendment Act between 1974 and 1998 have become obsolete after the Odisha Excise Act 2005 was passed.
However, among the Acts that the law department has proposed to repeal were passed as late as 2016. Former parliamentary affairs minister Panchanan Kanungo said repealing old and obsolete Acts was fine but good laws that were enacted to ensure political accountability should not be repealed in the name of cleansing the statute books. “If a law could not be enforced it does not mean it was unworkable. It simply means the executive could not implement it,” said Kanungo.