Report No. 56

23. Reasons given in earlier Reports for recommending deletion of section 80, Code of Civil Procedure.-

It may be noted that several reasons weighed with the Law Commission1 in recommending deletion of section 80, Civil Procedure Code. In the first place, the evidence taken by the Law Commission for the purposes of an earlier Report2 disclosed that in a large majority of cases the Governments or the public officers made no use of the opportunity afforded by the section.

Secondly, the same evidence disclosed3 that in a large number of cases Governments and public officers utilised section 80 mainly to raise technical defences contending either that no notice had been given or that the notice, though given, did not comply with the requirements of the section. Thirdly, the Commission was of the view that in a democratic country there should be no distinction of the kind envisaged by section 80 between the citizen and the State. A welfare State should have no such privileges as are needed4 by a police State in the matter of litigation, and should have no higher status than an ordinary litigant in this respect4.

1. 27th Report (Code of Civil Procedure), paras. 50-52; and also 54th Report.

2. 14th Report, Vol. I.

3. 14th Report, Vol. I.

4. 27th Report (Code of Civil Procedure), para. 52.