New Delhi, Nov 10.
The government may have notified and appointed the 22nd Law Commission but the commission has virtually rendered defunct with successive governments hardly accepting or implementing any of its reports in the last eleven years.
The last Commission report to be accepted and implemented was in 2011. The report related to court fees to be charged in corporate litigation.
As per information available on the Law Commission on the government’s department of legal affairs website, the last report was implemented on Feb 2, 2011. The 236th report on Court fees in Supreme Court vis a vis Corporate Litigation was submitted in 2010.
Prior to this, two reports were implemented in 2009. The 230th and 231th reports, which were implemented, dealt with reforms in the judiciary and amendments in the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, and Court Fees Act, 1870, permitting different modes of payment.
Twenty-five reports which have been submitted to the government thereafter are still pending for a decision. These include four voluminous interim reports on “obsolete laws warranting immediate repeal”. These were submitted in 2014.
The last report submitted by the Commission, as per the website, was on death penalty on September 17, 2015.
The Law Commission, headed by Dr B.S. Chauhan, did controversially seek public opinion in 2016 on whether a uniform civil code ought to be enacted, but no information is available on whether the Commission submitted its report on the issue to the government or not.
Incidentally, two earlier reports, the 211th and 212th reports, have already dealt with the issue.
The panel had then claimed that it was seeking to address social injustice rather than do away with plurality of laws in the personal sphere. The panel has been non-functional after Dr Chauhan stepped down as its last chairman.
The government website carries no information on any of the reports submitted during Dr Chauhan’s tenure.
The Law Commission website, however, shows 15 reports prepared by Dr Chauhan. It doesn’t include the one on the Uniform Civil Code.
It includes changes to the Advocates’ Act, 1961, hate speech, Human DNA profiling, Review of the Contempt of Courts Act, BCCI versus RTI, Gambling and Sports Betting and Wrongful Prosecution.
There is no information on whether these have been accepted by the government or not.
Though the Law Commission’s reports are not binding on the government, they are important as they throw much-needed light on glaring loopholes which need to be plugged in the justice delivery system.
The Cabinet chaired by PM Narendra Modi had approved the 22nd Law Commission for three years on Feb 19, 2020.
The Law Commission can either take up issues referred to by the government or any issue of topical importance Suo motu.
The Law Commission, which has been vacant since Dr Chauhan demitted office on Aug 31, 2018, was recently filled. The government appointed former Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi as its next chairman. Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi retired as Karnataka High Court Chief Justice on July 1st, 2022.
Awasthi presided over a special bench which had upheld the ban on Muslim girls wearing hijab in government colleges in Karnataka.
