Kerala sitting on law reforms report: former judge

KOCHI - Former Supreme Court judge V.R. Krishna Iyer says he is highly disillusioned as the Kerala government has been sitting on the law reforms commission report, suggesting pathbreaking reforms, for over a year.

“I feel humiliated and we did suggest a lot of reforms and we did not take a single paisa as remuneration for the job,” Iyer told a TV channel here Saturday.

Iyer, who headed the committee, fumed because the law ministry is yet to do anything on his detailed report, which suggested pathbreaking reforms related to the marriage customs of Muslims, appointing non-Brahmins as temple priests, properties of churches so that they can be transferred to a trust where the laity would also be represented, to name a few.

While receiving the report from Iyer more than a year back, Law Minister M. Vijayakumar said the final decision would be taken by the government after going through it and claimed this was an exercise done in the country for the first time and would soon become law.

Another interesting suggestion made is that those behind a shutdown should give a week’s notice and any damage arising from the shutdown would be recovered from those who have called it.

Iyer, 94, was the law and irrigation minister in the world’s first elected Communist government in 1957 led by E.M.S. Nampoothiripad.

-Indo Asian News Service