The Gazette of India
EXTRAORDINARY
PART II—Section 2
PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY
No. 56] NEW DELHI, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1982/KARTIKA, 11, 1904
Separate paging is given to this Part in order that it may be filed as a separate compilation
RAJYA SABHA
The following Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on the 2nd November, 1982: —
BILL N O. XXXVIII OF 1982
A Bill to repeal the Hindu Widows' Re-marriage Act, 1856.
BE it enacted by Parliament in the Thirty-third Year of the Republic of India as follows:—
1. This Act may be called the Hindu Widows' Re-marriage (Repeal)
Act, 1982.
Short title.
2. The Hindu Widows' Re-marriage Act, 1856 is hereby repealed.
Repeal of Act 15 of 1850.
4 #K£ GAZETTE OF INDIA EXTRAORDINARY [PART 11—SKC, AjSTATEMENT OF OBJECTS AND REASONS
The pioneering zeal of Eshwarchundra Sharum—who by his orudition later on earned the sobriquet "Vi'dyasagar"—resulted in the enactment of the Hindu Widows' Re-marriage Act in 1856 in spite of the cussedness of many a Sanat-anist. Nearly a hundred years later, four more Acts, viz., the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the Hmdu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, making fundamental and radical changes in the personal laws of Hindus, were passed.
2. It is now judicially settled that once a widow succeeds to the pro- perty and acquires absolute right under the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, she cannot be divested of that right on re-marriage. All the same, cer- tain provisions of the Act making references to the disabilities imposed on childless widows under the Dayabhaga School now suffer from a comparable obsolescene and the Law Commission in its 81st Report has recommended that the Hindu Widows' Re-marriage Act, 1856, having become obsolete, should be repealed so as to foreclose any possible argu- ments based on the construction of the provisions of this Act and the later Acts.
3. Hence this Bill.
NEW DELHI;
JAGAN NATH KAUSHAL.
The 16th October, 1982.
SUDARSHAN AGARWAL,