LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh is set to become the first state in the country to repeal 1,000 British era laws , some of them over 150 years old. The government plans to repeal them in one go.

The Yogi government has drawn up a list of such “obsolete” laws and will table a bill in the forthcoming budget session for their repeal. UP law minister Brijesh Pathak said many such laws have lost relevance in the wake of new legal provisions enacted over the years. “All such laws are being scrutinised for being repealed in one go,” he told TOI.

The list compiled by the law department also mentions “The United Province Act, 1890”, enacted by the British Governor-General-in-Council on October 16, 1890, for better administration of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh.

Incidentally, the decision to scrap obsolete laws comes a week after the Yogi government celebrated the first UP Diwas to commemorate the 68th year of UP’s formation from the erstwhile United Provinces. In December, the Lok Sabha, too, had passed two bills repealing 245 obsolete and archaic laws, including the 1911 Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act. Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said over 1,800 obsolete laws had been abolished since the Modi government came to power. Before that, Parliament had repealed 1,029 laws in 1950.

Need to identify laws not consistent with modern ones

The process of identifying old and irrelevant laws was initiated in September 2014 after the 20th Law Commission of India, then headed by Justice AP Shah, asked Prasad to continue the process under the project ‘Identification of Obsolete Laws’.

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The commission had noted the study had a holistic approach and long-term objectives, including suggesting ways and steps for modernisation and reforms of laws and of legal structures. Such a study has to begin by identifying and recommending repealing of laws which are obsolete and have ceased to be relevant. The commission also noted the study needs to identify laws which are inconsistent with modern and newer laws, with Supreme Court judgments and international conventions signed and ratified by India.

