The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 made several amendments to Motor Vehicles Act 1988. If this Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, is repealed, will it affect the changes already made to Motor Vehicles Act 1988?

We asked this question ourselves when we read the notification that the President of India gave her assent to Repealing and Amending Act of 2025 that repeals many Amendment Acts with respect to many laws like Motor Vehicles Act, Specific Relief Act, IBC, Arbitration & Conciliation Act etc.

We started our research and found that that this repealing of “Amendment Acts” is not a new process. It is at least happening since 1960. The Repealing and Amending Act of 1960 repeals many such "Amendment Acts". Section 5 of the 1960 Act clarifies the position of law on effect of repeal of amending enactment. It reads: "For the removal of doubts, it is hereby declared that where this Act repeals any enactment by which the text of any other enactment, not being a Central Act, Ordinance or Regulation, was amended by the express omission, insertion or substitution of any matter, the repeal shall not affect the continuance of any such amendment made by the enactment so repealed and in operation at the commencement of this Act."

Then we saw Repealing and Amending Act 1974 which repeals another set of Amendment Acts. However, there is no reproduction of a Section equivalent to the above Section 5 of 1960 Act. This is because, by then, it had become too obvious that once an Amendment Act comes into force, the original Act gets altered and the repeal of Amendment Act does not affect the changes already underwent by the Amended Original Act.

The repealing of the old obsolete laws is perfectly justified. But we do not understand why should an Amendment Act be repealed?

We wondered if tomorrow, will these Repealing and Amending Acts will also be repealed by another Repealing Act. But then we found that the Repealing and Amending Act of 1974 actually repeals Repealing and Amending Acts of 1960 and 1964.

Well, this sounds like an Inception movie about legislation. !