Headed by P C Jain, the Commission on Review of Administrative Laws submitted its report to the Cabinet Secretary exactly a year ago, recommending repeal of 1,382 laws and amendments in 343 others. But several ministries, including the Ministry of Law, and many Government departments have put in their objections.

The three broad areas where the ministries have opposed en bloc repeal are: Appropriation acts, reorganisation acts and personal laws.

The Jain Committee had recommended immediate repeal of 700 appropriation acts (these are those which deal with financial grants to Government departments). While the Finance and the Legislative Department of the Law Ministry said repeals would complicate matters, the Department of Legal Affairs (the otherwing of the Law Ministry) favoured repeal.

The Ministry of Finance argued that repeal of appropriation acts would lead to problems of audit and accounting, say, in the case of investigations being done by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). The matter has now been referred to the Attorney General for his final opinion.

Of the 35 Reorganisation Acts (these deal with changing state boundaries) meant to be repealed, the Home Ministry decided to allow axing of only seven. Why? Officials said that an en bloc repeal might affect the division of assets, functioning of corporations and legislative bodies set up when these states existed.

The Law Ministry's Legislative Department has decided to retain virtually all the Personal Laws which the Jain Committee wanted repealed -- expect an amendment to and consolidation of the Christain Personal Law. The logic, officials say, is the same: That it would be far less cumbersome having these Personal Laws in statute books than dealing with problems that theirrepeal might bring.

Besides these three categories, a status report on action taken on the recommendations shows that action is pending in 70 of the 166 Central Acts to be repealed and that response is awaited from state governments on repeal of 114 Central Acts which dealt with State lists. However, 315 Amendment Acts would soon be thrown out of the statute books through a `Repealing and Amending Bill' which has been finalised by the Legislative Department.

The delay in follow-up action has taken place despite a direction given by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that implementation should be completed by June 1999. A standing Committee under the Chairmanship of the Secretary (personnel) was constituted for monitoring the progress. Two progress reports were submitted to the Cabinet Secretariat in February and May after which Cabinet Secretary Prabhat Kumar held two review meetings.

All Ministries and Departments had September 30 as the deadline for completing their reviews of which laws should berepealed or amended.