Centre constitutes 23^rd Law Commission

News:

• The Centre notified the constitution of the 23rd Law Commission for a period of three years, with a provision to appoint serving Supreme Court and High Court judges as its chairperson and members.

Other facts:

• The term of the 22nd law panel ended on August 31.
• The panel will have a full-time chairperson and four full time members including a member-secretary.
• The secretary of the Department of Legal Affairs and the Secretary of the Legislative Department will be its ex-officio members.
• There cannot be more than five part-time members, according to the order.
• It said the chairperson/ members “who are serving judges of the Supreme Court/High Court shall perform their functions on a whole-time basis up to the date of retirement from the Supreme Court/High Court or expiry of the term of the Commission, whichever be earlier”.
• The time spent by them in the performance of such functions as chairperson/ member of the Commission will be treated as “actual service”.

About Law Commission:

• Law Commission of India is a non-statutory body and is constituted by a notification of the Government of India, Ministry of Law & Justice, Department of Legal Affairs with a definite terms of reference to carry out research in the field of law and the Commission makes recommendations to the Government (in the form of Reports) as per its terms of reference.
• The Law Commission has taken up various subjects on references made by Department of Legal Affairs, Supreme Court and High Courts and submitted 277 reports.
• The Law Commission of India provides excellent thought provoking and vital review of the laws in India.

Post-Independence Developments:

• Though the Constitution stipulated the continuation of pre-Constitution Laws (article 372) till they are amended or repealed, there had been demands in Parliament and outside for establishing a Central Law Commission to recommend revision and updating of the inherited laws to serve the fast-changing needs of the spirited country.
• The Central Government established the First Law Commission in 1955 with the then Attorney-General of India, Mr. M. C. Setalvad, as its Chairman.
• Since then twenty-two Law Commissions have been appointed, each with a three-year term and with a definite term of reference.

Vision:

• Reforming the laws for maximizing justice in society and promoting good governance under the rule of law.

Objectives:

• The Terms of Reference of the Law Commission includes review/repeal of obsolete laws
• To examine the Laws which affect the poor and carry out post-audit for socio-economic legislations
• To keep under review the system of judicial administration to ensure that it is responsive to the reasonable demands of the times and in particular to secure
• To examine the existing laws in the light of Directive Principles of State Policy and to suggest ways of improvement and reform and also to suggest such legislations as might be necessary to implement the Directive Principles and to attain the objectives set out in the Preamble to the Constitution
• Examine the existing laws with a view for promoting gender equality and suggesting amendments thereto
• To revise the Central Acts of general importance so as to simplify them and to remove anomalies, ambiguities and inequities
• To examine the impact of globalization on food security, unemployment and recommend measures for the protection of the interests of the marginalized

Functioning:

• The Commission works on projects based on the references received from the Central Government and/or from the Supreme Court and High Courts.
• At times, keeping in view the importance of the subject matter, the Commission initiates study on specific subjects, suo moto.
• The Commission always welcomes suggestions from any person, institution or organization on the issues under consideration of the Commission.

Reports:

• The Reports of the Law Commission are laid in Parliament from time to time by the Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law and Justice and forwarded to the concerned administrative Departments/Ministries for implementation.
• They are acted upon by concerned Departments/ Ministries depending on the Government’s decision.
• Invariably, the Reports are cited in Courts, Parliamentary Standing Committees, in academic and public discourses.

The Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill is knotty

Introduction:

• Recently, the central government introduced the Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha.
• The Bill shows much evidence of a further centralisation of an already heavily-centralised Disaster Management Act, 2005.
• This Act, in its current form, already mandates the creation of many authorities and committees at the national, State and district levels.
• The proposed Bill further provides statutory status to pre-act organisations such as the National Crisis Management Committee and a High Level Committee, complicating the chain of action to be followed in case of disasters.
• A repercussion of this top-down approach is seen when there is a delayed response to disasters, antithetical to the intent and purpose of the Act.
• The Bill claims to strengthen the working of the National Disaster Management Authority and the State Disaster Management Authorities to prepare State and national level plans.
• It also establishes an ‘Urban Disaster Management Authority’ for State capitals and cities with municipal corporations.
• However, this intended decentralisation of functions without the necessary financial devolution creates more problems than it solves.

Centralisation as a concern:

• The amendment Bill goes on to dilute the wording of the National Disaster Response Fund by removing the purposes for which the fund shall be used.
• One of the major concerns of the Disaster Management Act has been the excess centralisation of decision making on funds, especially in situations where the disaster is severe.
• The severity of the disaster must necessitate a prompt response by the central government, currently absent in the Act.
• A similarly delayed response was witnessed when the disaster relief funds from the NDRF were denied to Tamil Nadu and disbursed much later to Karnataka.
• In the backdrop of a looming climate crisis, there is a need to revisit the very idea of disasters under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

Restricted definition of ‘disaster’:

• Recent government statement said that it is currently not planning to classify heatwaves as a notified disaster under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
• This statement concurs with the observations of the 15th Finance Commission which did not find merit in expanding the scope of notified disasters.
• The notified list of disasters eligible for assistance under the National Disaster Response Fund/State Disaster Response Fund are cyclone, drought, earthquake, fire, flood, tsunami, hailstorm, landslide, avalanche, cloud burst, pest attack, frost and cold wave.
• It marks a sharp departure from the global narrative.
• Globally, there is enough consensus to classify heatwaves as climate-related disasters, given their ramifications on ecosystems and human health.
• According to the India Meteorological Department data, India had 536 heatwave days which is the highest number of heatwave days in almost 14 years.
• Rising heatwave days along with 10,635 human deaths due to heat or sunstroke in 2013-2022 portends a larger disaster in the making for the country.
• The Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the proposed Bill fall short as the definition of a disaster (although wide enough to cover the idea of climate-induced disasters) remains restricted and static.
• This is because the notified list of disasters under the Act restricts the inclusion of climate-induced disasters such as heatwaves which display regional variability and gradation specific to a geographical area.
• For example, a normal summer temperature of 40° C in several north Indian States may classify as heatwave conditions in the Himalayas.
• The definition however, is also not inclusive enough to be able to interpret a prolonged heatwave episode to be considered as a natural disaster even if its impacts are akin to an actual disaster such as floods in terms of the loss of human life.
• This poses a problem as the very nature of climate-induced disasters is incongruous to the idea of a traditional disaster under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the proposed Bill.
• The incongruity is exacerbated by the localised nature and impact of climate-induced disasters.

Relevant issues:

• Is the proposed Bill adept to tackle contemporary challenges arising due to the disproportionate power dynamics between the central and State governments?
• Do States have to largely depend on the central government for the disbursal of funds?
• If the Bill claims to be an improvised version of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, it does very little in learning from the failures encountered during the implementation of the Act while dealing with past disasters.
• There is a need to re-visit the Centre’s efforts in addressing the issue of financial preparedness when it comes to the management of and response to disasters.
• The conversation should not revolve around whether the Centre or State is responsible for the loss of lives in Wayanad, Kerala, but what is it that can be done to manage disasters and predict their future occurrence.
• After all, a blame game will only move away from realising the true spirit of cooperative federalism.

What is the Unified Lending Interface by the RBI?

How will the ULI enable friction-less credit to farmers? How will it make things easier for lenders?

Context:

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as part of its strategy to create digital public infrastructure in the country, has announced that a new technology platform called the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) would be introduced by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, Bengaluru which will enable friction-less credit to farmers and MSME borrowers to begin with.

ULI:

• It is a platform that facilitates the seamless flow of a customer’s digitised financial and non-financial data from multiple data service providers to lenders, making credit underwriting seamless and customer journeys frictionless for a diverse range of borrowers.
• This platform facilitates seamless and consent based flow of digital information, including even land records of various States.
• This will also bring down the time taken for credit appraisal, especially for smaller and rural borrowers without any credit history.
• The ULI architecture has common and standardised Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) designed for a ‘plug and play’ approach to ensure digital access to information from diverse sources.
• This will reduce the complexity of multiple technical integrations besides enabling borrowers to get the benefit of seamless delivery of credit and quicker turnaround time without requiring extensive and time-consuming documentation.
• Lenders would gain access to customer data from various silos, including government databases (for example, land records) and satellite imagery through standardised APIs.
• FinTechs can gain access to a variety of lenders on one platform and unlock opportunities to provide deeper customer insights.

Working of ULI:

• For first time loan seekers without any credit history or required documentation, availing a bank loan is near impossible.
• Now with ULI, digital credit information can be made available through a single platform which provides access to data providers and lenders to serve the needs of perspective borrowers.
• While ULI facilitates access to data about the loan applicant’s economic activities, it also allows financial sector players to access the data by connecting to the platform through a ‘plug and play’ model.
• Therefore, the loan applicants need not have to spend weeks to search and secure the documents.
• Instead the bank, the NBFC or the FinTech would fetch data about the applicant from sources available on the ULI platform.
• For a dairy farmer seeking a loan, the lender can find data from the milk cooperative to know about cash flows; land ownership status from land records of States; and insights into his financial condition through farming patterns.
• So what was once a blind spot for the lender would turn into a visible customer to do business with.
• With the help of ULI, the lenders can immediately know the income of the loan applicant and credit eligibility.
• Thus decision making would be automated and loans could be sanctioned and disbursed within minutes.
• Tenant farmers who often find it difficult to access agricultural credit for inputs and raw materials as they do not have the land title to submit to the banks can also avail loans.
• By programming the end use for purchase of agricultural inputs, the ULI platform can give the required comfort to banks and thus establish the identity of a farmer not through his land holding but through the end use of funds being disbursed.

ULI Initiation:

• The RBI had in August, 2023 announced the setting up of a Public Tech Platform for Frictionless Credit which is now branded as the ULI.
• The central bank was of the view that with rapid progress in digitalisation, data required for credit appraisal must be available at a single point for digital credit delivery.
• To address this situation, a pilot project for the digitalisation of Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans of less than ₹1.6 lakh began in 2022.
• The initial results of the KCC pilot, which got underway in select districts of Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, U.P., Maharashtra, were encouraging.
• The pilot enabled doorstep disbursement of loans in assisted or self-service mode without any paperwork.