Centre for Civil Society, in its continued effort to institutionalise the repealing of laws as a democratic practice for India, seeks to bring together policymakers, scholars, academicians, lawyers, and governance practitioners to acknowledge 26 November as the National Repeal Law Day.
The objectives of the National Repeal Law Day 2025 are:
- To celebrate a decade of India’s repeal movement and assess its impact on simplifying India’s legislative landscape.
- To deliberate on ways to institutionalise the repeal process through periodic review and structured frameworks for legal reform.
- To strengthen dialogue on repeal as an instrument of trust-based governance and better regulation.
The aim is to bring together 50–70 dedicated individuals under one roof to engage in constructive dialogue around the practices and models that can make repeal a replicable and sustainable element of good governance. The discussion will explore how clear, proportionate, and periodically reviewed laws can deepen trust between citizens and the state.
The idea is to move beyond one-time reforms and envisage practices that can be adopted moving forward, embedding repeal as a continuous and collaborative process that keeps governance simple, fair, and responsive to citizens
About Repeal of Laws Initiative
Centre of Civil Society (CCS) initiated the ‘Repeal of 100 Laws’ Project in 2014 with the aim to identify laws that could be repealed on account of three reasons—i) redundancy, ii) obsolescence in the face of new laws, and iii) hindrance to development, governance and freedom.
The success of ‘Repeal of 100 Laws’ Project, conducted in partnership with National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, was reflected in the successful repeal of 23 Central laws (of a total 100 suggestions) through the Repealing and Amending Bill, 2014. Further, the project was acknowledged in a Report on ‘Obsolete Laws: Warranting Immediate Repeal’ released by the Law Commission of India in September 2014. For the next phase of the project, CCS reached out to the State Governments of Delhi and Maharashtra, with the Maharashtra Chief Minister agreeing to repeal 19 of 25 laws.
In the subsequent phases of the Repeal of Laws Project, CCS reached out to 13 State Governments, to carry out extensive studies, in collaboration with esteemed law universities from each state. In 2017-18, compendia for the states of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, and Telangana were published. In 2018-19, compendia had special focus on the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland.
