Make law panel suggestions binding, says HC

Make law panel suggestions binding, says HC

Sureshkumar.K@timesgroup.com

Chennai:07.09.2021

Consider making the Law Commission of India a statutory body or give it a constitutional status so that its recommendations would be binding on the government, the Madras high court has told the Centre.

Suggesting a suitable constitutional amendment in this regard, a division bench of Justice N Kirubakaran and Justice B Pugalendhi also directed the Centre to appoint chairman and members to the law commission within three months.

The court passed the order on a plea moved by K Pushpavanam of Madurai seeking a direction to the Centre to propose a comprehensive legislation in the field of ‘Torts and State Liability’ as per the directions of the Supreme Court in MCD V Uphaar Tragedy Victims Assn case and Vadodara Municipal Corporation case.

Allowing the plea, the bench said: “What is the use of constitutional courts in passing judgments, giving recommendations for enacting laws, when they are not actually acted upon by the legislature? What is the use of having a law commission without its recommendation being acted upon?”

Though the separation of powers between Judiciary, Executive and Legislature has not been specifically spelled out in the Constitution, it is maintained without crossing their respective boundaries. However, the way in which things are moving, it is very difficult to maintain the limits or the boundaries as the legislature fails consistently to take notice of many of the court’s suggestions, which have been in the interest of the society to enact laws, the judges said.

“It is still worse with regard to acceptance of recommendations of the law commission, which after getting inputs from various stakeholders and discussions on various issues, were made to the government to enact law. They are neither accepted nor acted upon and are kept in cold storage for decades together,” the court added.

One such recommendation was made by the first law commission as early as in 1956 recommending to the Centre to enact a law covering the field of liability of state in tort. Pointing out several such instances, the court said: “If that is the position, this court is of the opinion that restraint shown by courts in exceeding its jurisdiction to encroach upon the field of legislature should be given up.”