Repeal of Statutes, and the Provisions Dealing with Repeal under the General Clauses Act

Partial repeal, where only some sections go, and repeal by substitution, where a provision is replaced with a new one in the same place.

Repeal and re-enactment, where the same subject is legislated afresh. This is the most important case in practice because it is what happened to the Indian Penal Code 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 and the Indian Evidence Act 1872 in 2023, and it is dealt with by sections 8 and 24.

Section 6, taken apart

The section has an opening condition and five clauses, and the marks are in setting them out separately.

The condition: "unless a different intention appears". Section 6 is a default. If the repealing Act itself provides otherwise, that provision governs. So the first question in any repeal problem is not "what does section 6 say" but "what does the repealing Act say", and section 6 fills whatever the repealing Act leaves open.

Clause (a): no revival. The repeal shall not revive anything not in force or existing at the time at which the repeal takes effect. If Act A repealed Act B, and Act C now repeals Act A, Act B does not come back to life.

Clause (b): the previous operation is untouched. The repeal does not affect the previous operation of the repealed enactment or anything duly done or suffered under it. A licence granted under the old Act remains a licence that was granted; an assessment made under it remains made.

Clause (c): accrued rights and liabilities survive. The repeal does not affect any right, privilege, obligation or liability acquired, accrued or incurred under the repealed enactment. Those three verbs are the heart of the section. Note the symmetry: it saves liabilities as well as rights, so a person cannot escape a debt owed under the old Act by pointing to its repeal.

Clause (d): penalties survive. The repeal does not affect any penalty, forfeiture or punishment incurred in respect of any offence committed against the repealed enactment.

Clause (e): proceedings and remedies survive, and may be started afresh. The repeal does not affect any investigation, legal proceeding or remedy in respect of any of the above, and any such investigation, proceeding or remedy may be instituted, continued or enforced, and the penalty, forfeiture or punishment may be imposed, as if the repealing Act had not been passed.

Clause (e) does more work than students notice. It does not merely preserve pending proceedings; it allows a proceeding to be instituted after the repeal, in respect of something done before it.

The one distinction that decides most section 6 problems

A right accrued is saved. A mere hope, expectation or existing right that had not accrued to the particular person is not.

The test is whether, at the moment of repeal, the person had something that had already become theirs, or merely the benefit of a rule that might have operated in their favour later. A judgment debt is accrued. A right of appeal is generally treated as accruing when the proceeding is instituted, not when the appeal is filed. An expectation that a concession would continue is not accrued at all.

Section 6A: repealing an amending Act

This one confuses everybody the first time and it is simple once seen.

Suppose Act X of 2010 amended the principal Act by substituting the word "thirty" for "fifteen" in section 4. In 2020 Parliament repeals Act X, as part of a housekeeping Act clearing out spent amending Acts. Does section 4 revert to "fifteen"?

Section 6A: where any Central Act or Regulation repeals any enactment by which the text of a Central Act or Regulation was amended by the express omission, insertion or substitution of any matter, then, unless a different intention appears, the repeal shall not affect the continuance of any such amendment made by the enactment so repealed and in operation at the time of such repeal.

So the answer is no: section 4 still reads "thirty". The reason is that once an amending Act has done its work, the amendment lives in the principal Act, and the amending Act is spent. Repealing a spent Act is tidying, and it does not undo what the Act did.

Section 7: revival must be express

Section 7(1): in any Central Act or Regulation made after the commencement of this Act, it shall be necessary, for the purpose of reviving, either wholly or partially, any enactment wholly or partially repealed, expressly to state that purpose.

Section 7(2) extends the rule to all Central Acts made after 3 January 1868 and all Regulations made on or after 14 January 1887.

Read section 7 with section 6(a) and the position is complete. Section 6(a) says a repeal does not revive; section 7 says that if the legislature does want to revive something, it must say so in terms. Revival by implication does not exist.

Section 8: references to a repealed provision

Section 8(1): where this Act, or any Central Act or Regulation made after the commencement of this Act, repeals and re-enacts, with or without modification, any provision of a former enactment, then references in any other enactment or in any instrument to the provision so repealed shall, unless a different intention appears, be construed as references to the provision so re-enacted.

This is the provision that keeps the statute book from disintegrating. Hundreds of Acts refer to sections of other Acts. When one of those Acts is replaced, section 8 redirects every reference automatically, so that a reference in a 1970 Act to a section of a Code replaced in 2023 is read as a reference to the corresponding provision of the new Code.

Section 8(2) does the same for provisions repealed and re-enacted by a United Kingdom Act before 15 August 1947.

The limits are worth naming. Section 8 applies where a provision is repealed and re-enacted, so it does not help where a provision is simply repealed and nothing takes its place; and it operates only where the re-enacted provision genuinely corresponds, since it cannot supply a correspondence that does not exist.

Section 24: what was made under the old Act

Section 24: where any Central Act or Regulation is repealed and re-enacted, with or without modification, then, unless it is otherwise expressly provided, any appointment, notification, order, scheme, rule, form or bye-law made or issued under the repealed Act shall, so far as it is not inconsistent with the provisions re-enacted, continue in force, and be deemed to have been made or issued under the provisions so re-enacted, unless and until superseded by something made or issued under those provisions.

The practical importance is enormous. When a Code is replaced, the rules, forms, notifications and appointments made under the old one do not vanish; they carry over and are treated as made under the new one, so far as they are consistent with it, until they are replaced.

Repeal is not the only way a statute stops operating

Three others, and confusing them with repeal is a standing error.

Expiry of a temporary Act. Section 6 does not apply, because it speaks of a repeal; what survives depends on the Act's own saving clause. See [Statutes: Meaning and Classification].

A declaration of unconstitutionality. A law inconsistent with the fundamental rights is void under article 13, which is not a repeal by the legislature but a consequence declared by a court. Keshavan Madhava Menon v. State of Bombay, AIR 1951 SC 128, decided that article 13(1) does not operate retrospectively; the case is worked in [Prospective Application and Retrospective Effect].

Disuse. It is not a way at all. A statute does not lapse because nobody has used it. See [Legal Maxims: the Remaining Seven].

A worked example

The Indian Penal Code 1860 was replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, and the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023, with effect from 1 July 2024. Sunil is alleged to have committed an offence on 3 March 2024 and is charged in 2026.

Which law applies to the offence itself? The Penal Code as it stood on 3 March 2024. Section 6(c) and (d) save the liability incurred and the punishment incurred under the repealed enactment, and article 20(1) of the Constitution would in any event forbid convicting him under a law not in force when he acted.

Can he be prosecuted at all, the Code having gone? Yes. Section 6(e) provides that any legal proceeding in respect of such a liability or punishment may be instituted, continued or enforced as if the repealing Act had not been passed. Instituting a prosecution in 2026 for an offence of March 2024 is exactly what that clause permits.

Under which procedure is he tried? Here the answer comes from the repealing Act's own saving provision and not from section 6, because the first question is always what the repealing Act says. Where the new Code makes its own transitional provision for pending and future proceedings, that provision governs; section 6 fills only what is left open.

What about the rules and forms made under the old Code? Section 24 carries them over: they continue in force so far as they are not inconsistent with the re-enacted provisions, and are deemed made under them until superseded.

And a 1985 Act that says "an offence punishable under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code"? Section 8 redirects the reference to the corresponding provision of the Sanhita, because the provision was repealed and re-enacted.

Finally, suppose in 2027 Parliament repeals the amending Act that had inserted a section into the old Code in 2013. Section 6A applies: repealing a spent amending Act does not undo the amendment it made.

Distinctions table

What this does NOT mean

Section 6 is not a rule the repealing Act cannot displace. It opens with "unless a different intention appears", so the repealing Act's own provisions come first.

A repeal does not revive an earlier repealed Act. Section 6(a), reinforced by section 7's requirement that revival be express.

Repealing an amending Act does not undo the amendment. Section 6A.

Section 8 does not save a reference where nothing was re-enacted. It applies to repeal and re-enactment.

Expiry is not repeal, so section 6 does not apply to a temporary Act that has run out.

Limits and criticism

Section 6 turns on the phrase "unless a different intention appears", and that phrase is litigated constantly, because whether the repealing Act shows a different intention is a question of construction on which reasonable people differ.

"Accrued" is not defined, and the line between an accrued right and a mere expectation has been drawn case by case for over a century.

Section 24 preserves the old rules only "so far as not inconsistent", which means that after a major re-enactment nobody can say with confidence which of the old rules still stand until a court has been asked.

Quick revision

Kinds: express, implied, partial, by substitution, and repeal with re-enactment. Implied repeal is not favoured; generalia specialibus non derogant.

s.6, unless a different intention appears: (a) no revival; (b) previous operation and anything duly done or suffered unaffected; (c) rights, privileges, obligations and liabilities acquired, accrued or incurred unaffected; (d) penalties, forfeitures and punishments incurred unaffected; (e) investigations, proceedings and remedies unaffected and may be instituted, continued or enforced, and punishment imposed, as if the repealing Act had not been passed.

s.6A: repealing an Act that amended a text by omission, insertion or substitution does not affect the continuance of the amendment.

s.7: revival must be expressly stated.

s.8: references to a repealed provision are read as references to the re-enacted provision, where there has been repeal AND re-enactment.

s.24: appointments, notifications, orders, schemes, rules, forms and bye-laws continue so far as not inconsistent, deemed made under the re-enacted provisions, until superseded.

Not repeal: expiry of a temporary Act, a declaration of unconstitutionality, disuse.

Test yourself

1. Set out the effect of section 6 of the General Clauses Act 1897.

Unless a different intention appears, the repeal of an enactment shall not revive anything not in force or existing when the repeal takes effect; shall not affect the previous operation of the repealed enactment or anything duly done or suffered under it; shall not affect any right, privilege, obligation or liability acquired, accrued or incurred under it; shall not affect any penalty, forfeiture or punishment incurred for an offence against it; and shall not affect any investigation, legal proceeding or remedy in respect of any of those. Any such investigation, proceeding or remedy may be instituted, continued or enforced, and any such penalty, forfeiture or punishment imposed, as if the repealing Act had not been passed.

2. Why is section 6 necessary?

Because at common law a repeal destroyed the statute as though it had never existed, so prosecutions collapsed, accrued rights evaporated and pending proceedings abated. Every repealing Act therefore needed its own saving clause, and an omission by the draftsman deprived people of rights for reasons unconnected with the merits. Section 6 supplies that saving once and for all, with the result that a repeal operates prospectively, which is the presumption against retrospectivity applied to repeals.

3. Does repealing an amending Act undo the amendment it made?

No. Section 6A provides that where a Central Act or Regulation repeals an enactment by which the text of a Central Act or Regulation was amended by the express omission, insertion or substitution of any matter, then, unless a different intention appears, the repeal shall not affect the continuance of any such amendment which was in operation at the time of the repeal. Once an amending Act has done its work the amendment lives in the principal Act and the amending Act is spent, so repealing it is housekeeping.

4. Can a repealed Act be revived by implication?

No. Section 6(a) provides that a repeal does not revive anything not in force or existing when the repeal takes effect, and section 7(1) requires that, for the purpose of reviving wholly or partially any enactment wholly or partially repealed, the purpose be expressly stated. Revival is therefore only ever express, and the two provisions read together leave no room for an argument that repealing a repealing Act brings the original back.

5. What happens to a reference, in one Act, to a section of another Act that has since been replaced?

Section 8(1) provides that where an enactment repeals and re-enacts, with or without modification, a provision of a former enactment, references in any other enactment or instrument to the provision repealed shall, unless a different intention appears, be construed as references to the provision re-enacted. So the reference is redirected automatically. The limit is that there must have been repeal and re-enactment: where a provision is repealed and nothing corresponding takes its place, section 8 has nothing to redirect the reference to.

6. A Code is replaced. What becomes of the rules and forms made under the old Code?

Section 24 provides that where a Central Act or Regulation is repealed and re-enacted, with or without modification, then, unless otherwise expressly provided, any appointment, notification, order, scheme, rule, form or bye-law made or issued under the repealed Act shall, so far as it is not inconsistent with the re-enacted provisions, continue in force and be deemed to have been made or issued under those provisions, unless and until superseded. The practical effect is that administration continues without interruption, and the qualification "so far as not inconsistent" is what has to be tested rule by rule.