Mechanism needed to reduce executive-judiciary friction: Sadananda Gowda

Newly-appointed Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda on Monday said there was a need to find a "new mechanism" to reduce the friction between the executive and the judiciary.

"Two issues are there. One is regarding electoral (reforms). The other with regard to the judiciary and executive as you rightly said. This is a very vast issue that has to be dealt with in such a manner that we should find out some mechanism to work out and also see that certain new line of thinking is there," he told reporters. 

Gowda also said reducing the number of litigations by government agencies and weeding out obsolete laws would be his priority. He said there was a need to educate people to reduce litigations. Litigations by government agencies against each other, litigations between the Centre and the state governments also needed to come down.

He pointed out that people think that to deal with any problem there should be a new law. He said this mindset has to change. "A bill is already pending to weed out 36 obsolete laws. We have identified 287 more enactments that can be repealed," he said after joining his new assignment. He said he would continue to implement the initiatives taken by his predecessor Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Asked whether his shift from the Railway Ministry to the Ministry of Law and Justice was a 'promotion', Gowda said as a minister his job is to implement the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "It is the prerogative of the Prime Minister to appoint ministers," he said. Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar had come to greet Gowda at the Law Ministry.

Asked why the Law Ministry was taking time to take decision on various proposals relating to electoral reforms made by the Election Commission, he said the government has to take a considered view before taking a call. Gowda refused to react to a poser on retrospective tax, saying Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was the right person to answer on the issue.