PRS Legislative Research has launched a new Web site (www.lawsofindia.org), to collect the laws of India from all its states. Are these difficult to find in a convenient fashion? Yes. Laws can mean statutes and they can also mean administrative law (rules, regulations, orders). In both cases, there can be Central laws as well as state-level ones. The problem was that these weren?t available in a single place for a long time. It?s a bit like the CSS (centrally sponsored scheme) system, where government functionaries themselves don?t know that there are 255 CSSs. How can citizens know what laws they are supposed to follow, if they aren?t available? How can government know what laws are to be enforced if they aren?t available? For Central statutes, this knowledge vacuum changed in the early-1990s and all Central statutes became available, for example, through India Code. In the early 2000s, Central administrative law also became available, though not in soft form. This still left state-level laws, both statutes and administrative law. Consequently, no one knew how many state-level laws there were. A government committee appointed in 1998 reported there were around 25,000 state-level statutes, a figure that was a gross over-estimate, worked out on the basis of an arbitrary 1,015 figure for Orissa, multiplied by roughly 25 states. It isn?t the case that laws weren?t available for all states. Delhi and Rajasthan were two early states where they became available. But the laws weren?t available for other states and there was nothing comparable to India Code. Shouldn?t the government have better things to do than decide whether shops on one side of Najafgarh drain should be kept open on Tuesdays and those on the other side of Najafgarh drain be kept open on Wednesdays? Do we still need a law that requires that drums be beaten if Delhi is invaded by locusts?

Such questions can?t be asked unless laws become available. What the new Web site does is to make state-level laws (both statutes and administrative) available in the public domain. There are three senses in which the Web site is still incomplete. First, it doesn?t cover all states, at least not yet. We have 105 laws for Andhra, 48 for Arunachal, 148 for Gujarat, 280 for Haryana, 217 for Kerala, 78 for Nagaland, 86 for Sikkim, 60 for Tripura, 173 for UP and 67 for Uttarakhand. Second, PRS doesn?t yet know if the set is complete even for included states. It?s perfectly possible some law has been missed out for Andhra. That?s the intention behind placing state-level laws on a Web site in soft form, instead of publishing them in some form as a code. We can visit the Web site and point out omissions. In fact, the chronology covered today is such that it is certain all laws haven?t been included. But with this beginning, eventually we should have a complete list and be in a position to question whether we still need these laws. Third, the administrative law isn?t up there yet.

Here are the ones I personally want to check out. From Andhra, Bobbili and Seethanagaram (Acquisition and Transfer of Sugar Undertakings) Act, 1986; from Gujarat, Gujarat New Capital (Periphery) Control Act, 1960; from Haryana, Punjab Laws Act, 1872; from Kerala, Travancore-Cochin Payment of Salaries and Allowances Act, 1951; and from UP, Uttar Pradesh Home Guards Adhiniyam, 1963. I wonder when these laws were last invoked. More importantly, most state-level laws have something to do with land, credit, debt, forests and agriculture?there aren?t as many laws on labour as one tends to think. These are areas in need of reform and several of them also impinge on infrastructure. That the focus of reforms is now states is a truism. But when this is stated, one tends to think in terms of economic policies. But economic policy is backed up by legal infrastructure. For example, one couldn?t have reformed industrial licensing in India without changing Industries Development and Regulation Act (IDRA) of 1951. That kind of reform can now start for states. However, why should a body like PRS have to do this? Isn?t this what the government is supposed to do? Shouldn?t the database have been generated from within government? Once the database was established, shouldn?t state-level Law Commissions have undertaken the scrutiny exercise? These are meant to be rhetorical questions. Even at the Centre, statutory law reform hasn?t been driven by the Law Commission, not for a long time.

?The author is a noted economist