Make laws more understandable to average person: minister

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, DEC. 23. Laws should be demystified and made more understandable to the average person, the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, Prof. B.K. Chandrasekhar, said here today.

Inaugurating the website, IndiaLawInfo.com, created by a group of Bangalore-based professionals, the minister, who was himself a professor of law, pointed out that the thousands of cases pending before the courts for years together could have been avoided if the parties concerned had better understanding of their legal rights and obligations. This was especially the case with regard to property disputes which accounted for most of the pending litigation.

Complimenting the legal website for its "bold and exciting adventure", Prof. Chandrasekhar wanted the site to focus on the legal implications of certain issues agitating the public mind. One was regarding major projects and their environmental impact on which a major controversy was raging now. Public documents relating to such issues were not easily available to the people affected. Another was inter-institutional disputes such as those concerning the rights of panchayat raj bodies and State governments.

The website should also focus on Media Law, going beyond defamation, he suggested. The law was not clear about the "Right to Reply" and the media were not obliged to publish rebuttals, he pointed out. Even the Press Council had little powers in this regard. The anti-corruption laws too had to be made easier to understand. Deploring the "culture of administration we have inherited", Prof. Chandrasekhar said the Karnataka Administrative Reforms Commission had made some far-reaching recommendations which the Government would follow. The Right to Information Bill, which had now received the Governor's assent, was another step in this direction.

The Secretary for Information Technology, Mr. Vivek Kulkarni, said there were often "too many laws and too many provisions" and these had to be made simpler for the layman to understand. The Internet was becoming an inexpensive medium for communications and, in Bangalore, the bandwidth was being increased from 60 MB to 370 MB, which would be ahead of that available in Mumbai. To expand e-governance, privately operated information kiosks would be used.

The IndiaLawInfo.com website will have user-friendly sections such as law for the common man, explanation of legal terminology and details of laws concerning software companies, dotcoms and NGOs in an easy-to-use format. IT companies and other corporates will subscribe to the website which will act as an online legal adviser. The information will be free for other users.

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