Govt appoints members to new Law Commission

The Government had constituted the 19th Law Commission on September 1 last year and had appointed Justice P V Reddi as its Chairman in March this year. The panel advises government on complex legal issues but its recommendations are not binding.

Justice Reddi (70) retired as Supreme Court judge in August 2005 and the major judgements delivered by him include the 2001 Parliament attack case and the bench headed by him had upheld the death sentence of convict Afzal Guru. Reddi had earlier served as Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court. Before taking over as Chairman of the 19th Law Commission, Justice Reddi was heading the Authority for Advance Rulings.

Former Rajasthan High Court judge Shiv Kumar Sharma and former Additional Solicitor General Amarjit Singh have been appointed as full-time members of the Commission. Singh took over his post today itself.

The Law Ministry has also appointed six part-time members, which include corporate law expert and former Chairman of the Securities Appellate Tribunal, C Achuthan. He was also on the revamp board of Satyam Computers, and later headed a committee for overhauling the country's takeover regulations.

Senior Supreme Court advocate R Venkataramani will be the second part-time member. Others appointed to the Law Commission include the dean of Symbiosis Law Institute, Pune, Dr Shashikala Gurpur, Professor M Afzal Wani, Director (Legal Aid Cell), Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi and Prof Ranbir Singh, Vice-Chancellor of National Law University, Delhi.

Singh is also a member of the Srikrishna Committee formed by the Centre to look into various aspects of creating a separate Telangana state out of Andhra Pradesh. All the members will have a tenure of three years.

The term of the previous Law Commission headed by Justice A R Lakshmanan had ended in March, 2009.