Commencement of Statutes

In one line

Commencement is the day an Act comes into force, and it is not the day it was passed, not the day it received assent, and not the day it was published.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 3(13) of the General Clauses Act 1897 provides that "commencement", used with reference to an Act or Regulation, shall mean the day on which the Act or Regulation comes into force; section 5(1) provides that where a Central Act is not expressed to come into operation on a particular day, it shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the assent of the President, or, for an Act made before the Constitution, of the Governor General; and section 5(3) provides that unless the contrary is expressed, a Central Act or Regulation shall be construed as coming into operation immediately on the expiration of the day preceding its commencement.

Why this has a section of its own

Because the gap between an Act being made and an Act being in force is real and it is often long.

Parliament may pass an Act in March and the Government may bring it into force in October, or in stages, or never. Until commencement the Act is on the statute book and is not law that anybody has to obey. A person prosecuted for conduct in April under an Act commenced in October has an unanswerable defence, and it is the defence a first-year student most often fails to spot.

The three dates

Learn them as three, in this order, and never merge them.

One, the date of passing. The day both Houses passed the Bill. It has almost no legal consequence by itself.

Two, the date of assent. Under article 111, when a Bill has been passed by the Houses it is presented to the President, who declares that he assents or withholds assent. On assent the Bill becomes an Act, and it is at this point that it is given its year and number, "Act 10 of 1897". The date of assent is printed at the head of every Act in square brackets.

Three, the date of commencement. The day the Act comes into force. Section 3(13) defines it exactly so.

Publication in the Official Gazette is how these things are made known, and "Official Gazette" is itself defined in section 3(39) as the Gazette of India or the Official Gazette of a State. Publication is not a fourth legal step in the life of a Central Act; it is how the assent and any commencement notification are communicated.

How an Act fixes its own commencement

Nearly every modern Act has a section 1 that does this, and there are three drafting patterns.