Government likely to repeal three pharma Acts

Mumbai, Nov 2016:

The government is likely to introduce legislation in the winter session of Parliament to repeal three pharmaceutical-related laws.

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has written to the department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) seeking its views and asked it to prepare for the introduction of the Bill to repeal the three Acts: the Pharmacy (Amendment) Act, 1959 (24 of 1959), the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Educational and Research (Amendment) Act, 2002 (28 of 2002), and the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Educational and Research (Amendment) Act, 2007 (19 of 2007), according to a 6 November PMO letter reviewed by Mint.

"(The legislative department is)… seeking your comments/concurrence… to facilitate introduction of a Bill to for repeal of the identified Acts in the next session of Parliament," the PMO said in the letter.

DoP has also been asked to send its response and decision to the legislative department and the PMO by this week.

PMO's move to do away with these old laws is on the basis of recommendations made by the Law Commission. The legislative department, ministry of law and justice, has been talking to various government departments and ministries in order to repeal obsolete laws.

"This is part of the government's move to remove outdated laws which don't serve any definitive purpose. It's basically to make the legal system more contemporary," an official said, requesting anonymity.

Since coming to power in May 2014, the National Democratic Alliance government has taken steps to amend older and archaic laws. Two months after coming to power, the government set up a two-member panel to identify obsolete laws that could be repealed. The Union law ministry had also written to the Law Commission to identify such laws.

According to the Commission's report, an "obsolete" law could be one where the subject matter of the law in question is outdated, and a law is no longer needed to govern that subject.

Additionally, "the purpose of the law in question has been fulfilled and it is no longer needed and third, there is newer law or regulation governing the same subject matter," according to the Commission's first report in September 2014.

The Law Commission panel had recommended repealing 252 laws over four reports submitted from September to November 2014. The two-member committee created by the PMO identified 1,741 central laws for repeal, out of a total 2,781 Acts. Livmint