Parliament has passed the Repealing and Amending Bill, 2025 to remove 71 outdated and colonial-era laws and update several others. The government said the move will reduce legal clutter and improve “ease of living” for citizens.
Parliament on Wednesday passed an important law aimed at removing many outdated and unused laws from India’s statute books. The government said this move will help simplify daily life for common citizens and reduce unnecessary legal confusion that has built up over many decades.
The Repealing and Amending Bill, 2025 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha by Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and was passed through a voice vote. The Lok Sabha had already cleared the Bill a day earlier, completing Parliament’s approval process.
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While presenting the Bill, Meghwal explained that its main purpose is to repeal laws that are no longer useful, correct drafting mistakes that occurred over time, and remove discriminatory provisions found in some existing laws.
He said the larger goal is to improve “ease of living” for people, in addition to the government’s ongoing focus on ease of doing business.
The minister told the House,
“If a law has become irrelevant or obsolete, the government will not hesitate to bring legislation to repeal it,”
The Bill proposes to repeal 71 old laws, many of which date back to the British colonial period. Some of the notable laws listed for repeal include the Indian Tramways Act, 1886; the Levy Sugar Price Equalisation Fund Act, 1976; and the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (Determination of Conditions of Service of Employees) Act, 1988.
These laws are considered outdated and no longer relevant to present-day governance and public needs.
Apart from repealing old laws, the Bill also seeks to amend four existing Acts. These include the General Clauses Act, 1897, and the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, where old terms such as references to registered posts are proposed to be updated to match modern communication methods.
Amendments have also been proposed to the Indian Succession Act, 1925, where the requirement of mandatory court validation of wills in certain situations is sought to be removed. In addition, a drafting error in the Disaster Management Act, 2005, is proposed to be corrected.
Meghwal informed Parliament that this exercise is part of a larger clean-up effort that has been ongoing since 2014.
He said that during this period, the government has repealed or amended a total of 1,577 old laws, out of which 1,562 have been repealed completely, while 15 have been re-enacted in a revised and updated form.
During the debate, Meghwal pointed to provisions in the Indian Succession Act to highlight that some laws still contain discriminatory elements.
He explained that wills made by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and Parsis in the former Madras, Bombay and Calcutta presidencies required probate, while similar requirements did not apply to Muslims.
“Any discrimination on the basis of religion, caste or sex is prohibited by the Constitution,”
he said, adding that the reforms were part of a broader effort to move away from a colonial legal mindset.
However, the Bill did not receive unquestioned support from all sides. Congress MP Vivek K Tankha questioned the government’s claim that the exercise amounts to decolonisation of India’s legal system.
He argued that the Bill appeared to be largely technical in nature and said that its actual impact on citizens’ lives had not been properly examined.
From the ruling side, BJP MP Subhash Barala supported the move, stating that outdated laws had caused unnecessary hardship to people for many years and that removing them would help reduce avoidable procedural burdens.
Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Dev also took part in the discussion and said that the legislation should be used as an opportunity to review provisions that may affect civil liberties, democratic values and the right to dissent.
Several other Members of Parliament from parties including the DMK, YSRCP, BJD, AIADMK, CPI(M), IUML, BSP, AAP, BJP and JMM participated in the debate. Their participation reflected wide political engagement with the process of cleaning up and modernising India’s legal framework.
With the Bill now passed by both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, it will be sent to the President for assent.
Once approved, the law will come into force and mark another step in the government’s continued effort to streamline the legal system and remove laws that no longer serve the needs of a modern and democratic India.
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