About two-thirds of our laws have not been used in independent India.

About 10 per cent of them can be scrapped right away.

And most of the 10 per cent in use currently have so many obsolete and conflicting provisions that they serve far more as instruments of harassment than effective means of justice.

The oldest law in the country has been in operation for over a century and half. The one sentence 1836 Bengal District Act empowers the Bengal government to create as many zillas as it wants. The Act still exists.

As do a host of other like the Indian Post Office Act of 1885, the Indian Evidence Act of 1850 or the Indian Sarais Act of 1867. Most of them cater to a colonial and feudal socio-economic environment. And they exists side by side, mostly in complete disharmony, with the Acts passed by independent India, the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947, the Companies Act of 1956 and the Patents Act of 1970 (replacing the 1911 Act) and the Act last passed, the amended Copyright Act, 1994.

Under the Indian Sarais Act, 1867, it is a punishable offence for ‘inn-keepers’ not to offer free drinking water to passer-by. Recently, a Delhi five-star hotel was taken to court by the municipal corporation on the grounds that the hotel was not doing so.

Only about 40 per cent of our laws are in regular use. Independent India has till now found no conceivable use for the rest.

The Indian Telegraph Act, which was passed in 1885, when the concept of television obviously didn’t exist, has been invoked five times in the past three years by Doordarshan over telecast rights of cricket matches played in India. This very nearly derailed the telecast of the 1996 World cup.

In the past century and a half, the socio-economic framework of the country has undergone radical changes, but the legal structure has failed to keep pace with it.

While India badly needs efficient laws, the time spent by the law-making body on the job is unbelievably little. Parliament spends less than 0.6 per cent of a Lok Sabha day on law-making.