Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of three contentious farm laws in his November 19 speech to the nation, assuring farmer groups protesting against these laws that the legislative procedure for repeal would be completed in the forthcoming Winter Session of Parliament.
After being submitted as ordinances by the Centre in June, the three farm laws were ratified by Parliament in September last year.
While the Supreme Court put the three farm laws on hold in January, experts say that a stay on their implementation does not change the fact that they received presidential assent - a requirement in the enactment of laws - and thus would need to be repealed through the proper constitutional process, by Parliament alone.
The power of Parliament to repeal a law is derived from the same provision of the Indian Constitution that governs the legislative prerogative of statute enactment.
Legislation can also include a "sunset" clause, which states that a law will no longer be in effect after a certain date unless further legislative action is taken to extend the law.
For example, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act 1987, also known as TADA, had a sunset clause and was allowed to expire in 1995.
If a law does not have a sunset clause, Parliament must pass new legislation to repeal it. Article 245 of the Indian Constitution states that the Parliament "may make laws for the whole or any part of the territory of India, and the legislature of a state may make laws for the whole or any part of the state" subject to its provisions.?
The Act was first passed in 1950, and it repealed 72 statutes.
"Repeal means to revoke, abrogate, or cancel particularly a statute," according to a 'Reference Note' prepared by the Lok Sabha Secretariat in 2016, and "any statute may repeal any Act in whole or in part, either expressly or implicitly, by enacting matter contrary to and inconsistent with the prior legislation."
It emphasises how statutes frequently state that preceding statutory provisions are abolished as a result.
Generally, laws are repealed to either remove inconsistencies or after they have served their purpose. When new laws are enacted, old laws on the subject are repealed by inserting a repeal clause in the new law.
Laws can be repealed in two ways - either through an ordinance, or through legislation.
In case an ordinance is used, it would need to be replaced by a law passed by Parliament within six months. If the ordinance lapses because it is not approved by Parliament, the repealed law can be revived.
The government can also bring legislation to repeal the farm laws. It will have to be passed by both Houses of Parliament, and receive the President¡¯s assent before it comes into effect.
All three farm laws can be repealed through a single legislation.
The Repealing and Amending (Amendment) Bill is passed through the same procedure as any other Bills for this purpose.?
A law can be repealed either in its entirety, in part, or even just to the extent that it is in contravention of other laws.
Even if this is done, according to the LS Secretariat, it will not be equivalent to restoring the old law. "When a repealing provision is repealed, it does not resurrect any statute previously repealed by it," it noted, adding that "it may allow common law principles to apply again."
As a result, repealing Acts "have no legislative effect, but are intended solely to excise dead substance from the statute book and reduce its volume," as they are usually "intended simply to excise dead matter from the statute book and to reduce its volume."
The LS Secretariat also pointed out that existing laws lay down that, "repeal connotes abrogation or obliteration of one statute by another, from the statute book as completely as if it had never been passed".
"When an Act is repealed ¡®it must be considered (except as to transactions past and closed) as if it had never existed¡¯," it said.
The Union Law Ministry stated in response to a query in Parliament earlier this year that "repealing of old legislations is an important commitment of the government for accomplishing the greater purpose of 'Minimum Government, Maximum Governance."
The Repealing and Amending provision was last used in 2019, when the Union government attempted to repeal 58 outdated laws and make minor changes to the Income Tax Act of 1961 and the Indian Institutes of Management Act of 2017.
However, this is the second time the BJP government has reversed course. It agreed to reinstate key provisions of the 2013 land acquisition law in 2015, ahead of the Bihar elections, after its proposed amendments to the law were met with protests and opposition in Rajya Sabha.
Since 2014, when Prime Minister Modi took office for the first time, "1,486 obsolete and unnecessary legislation" have been repealed, according to the data. The ministry says abolishing such laws reduces litigation "by providing greater clarity regarding legal provisions," and a two-member committee established in 2014 to identify legislation for repeal "evaluated and identified 1,824 obsolete Acts (including 229 State Acts) for repeal."
The Repealing and Amending Act, 2015, repealed 35 statutes, while the Repealing and Amending Act, 2016, repealed 294 statutes, based on the recommendations of this two-member Ramanujam Committee.
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