The Lok Sabha on December 17 passed The Repealing and Amending Bill, 2025 to repeal 71 obsolete laws on Day 12 of Parliament’s winter session. The bill also intends to amend four Acts, including the General Clauses Act, 1897, the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, the Indian Succession Act, 1925, and the Disaster Management Act 2005.
Speaking to the Indian Express former law secretary P K Malhotra, who served the position in the Ministry of Law and Justice, hailed the decision calling it a welcome step while underlining that the statutes had “outlived their utility”. He also emphasised that repealing these laws will have no impact on ongoing litigation.
Edited excerpts follow:
How do you view the passing of the bill namely ‘The Repealing and Amending Bill, 2025 in the Lok Sabha on December 17? Could the government have done it earlier, when it repealed IPC, CrPC and CPC?
Malhotra: Passing of the Repealing and Amending Bill, 2025 by the Lok Sabha is a welcome step. It could not have been done when IPC, CrPC and Evidence Acts were repealed. In fact, those three legislations were replaced with new legislations. The 71 laws now repealed have outlived their utility and are no more required.
Does repealing laws have any impact on ongoing litigations?
Malhotra: The legislation will have no impact on ongoing litigation. Cases which are already registered or pending in courts will continue as per law as it existed when the violation occurred. The repealing law always make a provision saving the actions already initiated under the repealed act.
What could have been the criteria adopted by the legislative authority to identify obsolete laws? Are there any laws or acts that you feel should have been included in the list of repealed laws?
Malhotra: We are living in a fast changing world. The social and economic requirements of the people are changing which need updating and review of existing laws to meet aspirations of the society. The repealing of obsolete laws is an exercise which is undertaken by the government.
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First such exercise was done as early as in 1952 when about eight pre-independence laws were repealed and about forty laws were amended. However, no fixed time frame was followed for undertaking this exercise.
When the NDA government came to power in 2014, it gave special attention to this aspect and repealed more than 1500 obsolete laws. Such repeal not only reduced the burden of the statute books, it also helped in stopping unnecessary harassment of the citizens at the hands of the law enforcing agencies in registering cases under laws which have lost their relevance with passage of time.
The bill seeks to “rectify” an “inadvertent error” in The Disaster Management Act, 2005 by substituting the word ‘prevention’ with the word ‘preparation’. Having overseen the drafting of several major legislations, how do you distinguish between a ‘correction’ and a ‘substantive change’ in a bill of this nature?”
Malhotra: Typographical errors are generally corrected by issuing a corrigendum. However, if substitution of some words or clause is necessitated, it is done through an amending act because such substitution may sometimes affect rights or obligations of the person to whom the law is applied and hence Parliamentary approval becomes necessary.
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Since 2014, over 1,500 laws have been repealed. Do you believe India needs a permanent ‘Law Revision Committee’ or an institutional mechanism to ensure laws are reviewed every decade, rather than revisions every few years?”
Malhotra: As I said earlier, repeal of obsolete laws is a regular exercise. I don’t think we need a separate institutional mechanism to ensure that laws are reviewed at regular intervals. This can be done by the Law Commission of India. The Law commission is mandated to advise the government on all legal matters. In the past, LCI has given reports on the repeal of obsolete laws which were considered and implemented by the government.
Another option that can be considered by the government is to provide for a sunset clause in the legislation itself, when it is introduced in the parliament. Such a clause may provide the time frame within which the law should be necessarily reviewed by the parliament. After such review, if its validity is not extended, it automatically ceases to exist on expiry of the time line prescribed. However such provision can be made only in legislations which are not of permanent nature like Bhartiya Nyay Sahinta.
Given your recent comments on the Uniform Civil Code, do you see the repeal of community-specific procedural requirements in the Succession Act as a ‘testing ground’ for broader reforms in personal law?
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Malhotra: Making amendments in certain laws which are procedural in nature through repealing and amending act has been in practice since coming into force of the Constitution. The proposed amendment is on similar lines. I do not see any deviation from the existing legislative practice in this regard.
Counter view
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, however, said that the fanfare over repealing mostly amendment or amending laws was misplaced.
“These laws amend existing laws and merge with them and their removal requires no great application of mind nor effort and with zero impact on the nation. The real challenge is of repeal and/ or replacement of old laws which have an impact on the lives of citizens,” he said.
