RIGHTSIZING THE LAW: A SUCCESSFUL CLEAN-UP PROJECT FOR THE LAWS BY BUREAUCRATS AND LEGISLATOR

RIGHTSIZING THE LAW: A SUCCESSFUL CLEAN-UP PROJECT FOR THE LAWS BY BUREAUCRATS AND LEGISLATOR

The Vasundhara Raje-led government in Rajasthan has taken the lead in bringing about remarkable changes to the legislative laws. She believes that changes are hard at first but gorgeous at the ends. Changes are the only constant thing in nature we have. As our country becomes more urban and smarter, laws and rules need to be amended accordingly. She has taken steps forward in reforming the required and eliminating the rest laws, which reformists have long argued.

Good governance is transparent, effective, efficient, participatory and follows the rule of law. Rajasthan, under the leadership of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje will boost minimum government and maximum governance by repealing several laws.

BJP led state government in Rajasthan has recently undertaken major labour law reforms. In effect, these neo-liberal reforms empower the employers to retrench/lay off workers, declare closure/shut down at will and resort to mass contractualisation. These measures would push more than 70 per cent of industrial establishments, and the workers employed in them, out of the purview of almost all the labour laws.

Praising Rajasthan, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: “India in the last few months has been following a policy with renewed vigour of attracting investment into the country. Public investment has significantly increased, FDI has considerably increased, private sector investment is slowly picking up. We have eased all the rules as far as investment is concerned and I am sure Rajasthan as an extremely progressive state and is certainly going to gain from this new investment chapter that India is writing.”

Rajasthan kicked off in 2015 with a total of 592 legislative acts which reportedly will be cut down to 279 by the end of 2016. It all started with the project ‘Rightsizing the law’ which included repealing, consolidating, examining relevance and putting laws online. Chief minister’s prudent and bilateral vision and the hard work of the team made the state complete the repealing of the legislative acts by the end of last year, finalising consolidation in May, and putting laws online from last month. Parameters were set to chop out the not required legislative laws. These were by looking if the law is not used anymore, if more than one law states the same thing, and if there will be a reduction in needless discretion or public harassment. Working on these parameters more than 150 acts were repealed in 2015 and almost 50% of the rest will be done by the end of 2016.

CM Raje believes that laws and acts are like fingernails, they keep growing if not cut. There are various acts and laws which state the similar article.  For example, the state has Rajasthan State Cattle Fairs Act of 1963 and the Rajasthan Gaushala Act of 1960 stating the same, the Resumption of Jagirs Act of 1952, and the Rajasthan Jagir Decisions and Proceedings (Validation) Act of 1955 also, Habitual Offenders (1953), Goondas (1975), and Anti-Social Activities (2006) again stating the same. The state doesn’t need to confuse between the different acts and laws which state the same. So, Raje took a step forward in merging and amending the unnecessary acts. Under the leadership of Chief Minister Raje, soon the state will witness a legislation that will consolidate 79 acts into 14.

Under the Rajasthan Laws Repealing Bill 2015, the government repealed 248 acts from over 66 departments. CM Raje aims at continue innovating by working and thus the rest 279 acts will be soon amended. As said above, transparency is an essential element in good governance and thus CM decided to online the laws and acts. 100 acts are now online and she assures that 100% acts will be online within next 6 months.

We bet it has not been an easy job for the CM and the government of the state to amend, repeal and cut off many acts and laws of the legislative. But the efforts poured in by the team are highly commendable. This is a perfect demonstration of CM Raje’s deeply held belief that, “there is nothing wrong in India that cannot be fixed with what is right with India. “
God Job. Bravo!

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