THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The law department has initiated procedures to repeal as many as 122 acts that were enacted in the state for multiple purposes since 2008, on the recommendations of the 15th report of the state law reforms commission.
The commission, in its report submitted to the government last month had recommended to repeal as many as 218 acts prevailing in the state, many of those that were enacted even before the formation of the state. The law reforms commission had submitted the draft Kerala saving and repealing bill, 2021, for repealing these laws. The law department then found that of the 218 acts that have been recommended for repealing, as many as 96 acts have already been recommended for being repealed by a committee headed by eminent jurist V R Krishna Iyer in 2009 itself.
The law department then informed the cabinet that the procedures for repealing the 96 acts as recommended by the committee headed by Krishna Iyer have already been initiated, and the procedures for repealing the remaining 122 acts can be initiated. The cabinet on November 24, cleared the proposal for repealing the remaining acts that have been recommended by the committee by excluding those that have already been recommended by the Krishna Iyer committee on which the law department is still working. On the basis of the cabinet decision, the law department has begun the procedures for placing the bill in the assembly. All these 122 acts that are being repealed are amendment acts to various existing acts in the state.
However, the acts that have already been recommended by the Krishna Iyer committee includes several of those which could evoke interest in history enthusiasts, including two acts passed in the erstwhile Travancore, eight in the erstwhile Cochin, one that is applicable to Travancore and Cochin, 16 acts that are applicable to former Malabar district that came under the Madras state and 10 acts that were passed after the formation of the state. It also contains as many as 59 amendment acts that were passed till 2007 in the state.
The acts of pre-state formation era includes Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act, which is a law enacted on October 9, 1947, immediately after the country became independent from British rule that made it illegal to dedicate girls to the temples, the Paliam Proclamation enacted by the Cochin government in 1935, that declared all the estates under the Paliam family (the family of the chief ministers of Maharajas of Cochin) to be under the kingdom, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act enacted in Cochin to stop cruelty towards animals and the Supply of Paddy and Rice to Travancore Palace (extinguishment of rights and liabilities), Act, 1976, that abolished the obligation on the part of the government to honour the order of 1949, without paying any compensation to the palace.
The order of 1949 said that as much as 4,000 paras of paddy, 110 paras of njavara rice, and one-and-a-half paras of oora rice be supplied to Travancore palace annually for the use of the former Maharaja and the palace, in lieu of surrendering the kandukrishi lands to the government.
