Uniformity in Succession, Clarity in Service: Key Takeaways from the Repealing & Amending Bill, 2025

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 Repealing & Amending Bill, 2025

Why this Bill matters

The Repealing and Amending Bill, 2025 (Bill No. 193 of 2025, as introduced in Lok Sabha) is a periodic “clean-up” measure: it repeals enactments that have ceased to be in force/are obsolete and corrects selected formal defects through limited amendments.​

Operationally, it (i) repeals enactments listed in the First Schedule, (ii) amends enactments listed in the Second Schedule, and (iii) carries a standard savings clause to protect past acts, accrued rights/liabilities, and pending proceedings from being disturbed by repeal.

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Repeals: what (not) to assume

The First Schedule proposes repeals ranging from older special enactments (e.g., The Indian Tramways Act, 1886) to a large set of stand-alone Amendment Acts across diverse fields.​

For courts and the Bar, the practical point is to treat these as statute-book rationalisation unless a practitioner is relying on a repealed standalone enactment as an independent source of continuing rights (which the savings clause is drafted to guard against, for past/accrued matters).​

Service by post: CPC + General Clauses

On the service front, the Bill proposes aligning statutory language with the Department of Posts’ rationalisation by replacing “registered post” with “speed post with registration” in section 27 of the General Clauses Act, 1897.​

Consequential CPC changes similarly substitute “registered post, acknowledgement due” with “speed post with registration and proof of delivery” in CPC section 148A(2), Order V Rule 9 (service of summons), Order XXI Rule 1(2) (notice of payment under decree), and Order XXXIX Rule 3 (post‑injunction dispatch).​

A corrigenda also corrects internal drafting references in the Second Schedule (structuring of the CPC amendment sub‑parts), which helps avoid interpretive confusion in reading the schedule.​

Succession: omission of section 213

The most substantive proposal is under the Indian Succession Act, 1925: the Bill proposes omission of section 213 and consequential edits (including removing the reference to “213” in section 3(1) and modifying section 370)​

The Notes state that section 213 is discriminatory and create non-uniformity by requiring probate/letters of administration for specified communities in specified territorial contexts linked to the ordinary original civil jurisdiction of the High Courts at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, and that omission is to “attain uniformity.”​

The Notes further state that section 370(2)(b) is proposed to be omitted as a colonial relic, obsolete and redundant.​

Practice notes (bench & bar)

• Drafting/filing: Update templates and affidavits wherever statutes/rules/forms still say “registered post A.D.”; the Bill’s direction is toward “speed post with registration” and “proof of delivery” language in the cited CPC contexts.​

• Service disputes: Expect arguments to pivot from “A.D. card” mechanics to what qualifies as “proof of delivery” in speed post with registration, given the express substitution across CPC provisions.​

• Testamentary litigation: If section 213 is omitted as proposed, be ready for a shift in maintainability/objection strategy where probate was earlier treated as a threshold requirement in the covered situations described in the Notes.​

• Savings clause: When repeal is raised, check whether the issue concerns past acts/accrued rights/pending proceedings; clause 4 is drafted to preserve these and also to prevent any “revival” of non-existing jurisdictions/usages by repeal.​

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