Even after law sees the light of day, it may remain on paper due to lack of clarity in applicability.

The Hire-Purchase Act of 1972, never metamorphosed into an Act. For a Bill to become an Act, it must be passed by both Houses of Parliament, but this was passed by only one House. Due to lack of interest in the Bill, it just lapsed. This has resulted in a piquant situation, buyers of vehicles on hire-purchase/bank loans can’t be prosecuted by the financier not the vehicle repossessed even if they default on repayment, because there’s no law for it. In such cases, the only recourse open to the financier is to send thugs to the defaulter. However, a wily defaulter can run rings round the lender by lodging dacoity cases against the lender, and claiming that he had a large amount of money lying in the car when it was seized.