constitutional-law india legislature
What is meaning of omission of a section from any act of legislature
<p>I understand meaning of <strong>repealed</strong> sections. But, if any section of act has been identified as omitted does this mean that this particular section was not meant to be in the act? If so then why official texts of act mention its number and put the word <strong>omitted</strong>?<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/tA2rQ.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></p>

<p><strong>Edit:</strong> Screenshot of text of <em>Representation of People's Act 1951 (Govt of India)</em></p>

<p>It is a bit unclear why that version says "omitted". The Indian Legislature has a copy of <a href="http://www.legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/04_representation%20of%20the%20people%20act%2C%201951.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Representation of the People Act, 1951</a>, where in the Arrangement of Sections listing it says "168.  [Repealed.]", and the content of that section is</p>

<blockquote>
  <ol start="168">
  <li>[Special  provisions  with respect to Rulers of  former  Indian States.]   Rep.   by  the  Rulers  of  Indian  States  (Abolition   of
  Privileges) Act, 1972 (54 of 1972), s.  4 (w.e.f.  9-9-1972).</li>
  </ol>
</blockquote>

<p>We would need to know your source for that text to understand why it says "Omitted" in your Contents section. In the <a href="http://www.lawyerservices.in/Rulers-of-Indian-States-Abolition-of-Privileges-Act-1972-SECTION-4-Amendment-of-act-43-of-1951" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Abolition of Privileges Act, §4</a>
the text reads "Section 168 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, shall be omitted". §43-44 of the 1951 Act was also eliminated by <a href="https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1134157/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Representation Of The People (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1956</a>, and is also currently listed as being "Repealed". The text of the 1956 act says</p>

<blockquote>
  <ol start="2">
  <li>Removal of disqualifications.- (1) Every disqualification for membership of Parliament or of the Legislature of a State incurred by
  any person under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (43 of
  1951 ) (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act) before the
  commencement of the Representation of the People (Second Amendment)
  Act, 1956 , (27 of 1956 ) for failure to lodge a return of election
  expenses as required by clause (c) of section 7 of the principal Act
  is hereby removed.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>(2) Every disqualification for membership of Parliament or of the
  Legislature of a State or for voting at an election incurred by any
  person under the principal Act before the commencement of the
  Representation of the People (Second Amendment) Act, 1956 , for any
  illegal practice or for any corrupt practice, other than the corrupt
  practice of bribery or undue influence is hereby removed.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You might look at your version of the law to see what it says about §43-44 (repealed? removed? omitted?). It appears to not be legally significant, and probably arose by the codifiers who assembled the codified version of the various acts (who also added the footnotes). Presumably at one point it was decided to write "omitted" in the contents to match the wording of the repealing act, but the current version uniformly identifies repealed sections as "repealed", when the wording of the particular act means "this is repealed".</p>

<p>In your example it probably means that no section 168 was ever passed. Perhaps it was included in a draft of the law and was removed during the process of refining the law in the legislature. Perhaps the drafter thought an extra section would be needed for some purpose, but the need did not come to pass. Perhaps the drafter simply made an error in numbering, and 169 should have been 168, but this was not noticed until after the law was passed, and other sections refereed to 169 and later sections by number, so that changing all the references would be tedious and error-prone. </p>

<p>In any of those cases "168 [<em>Omitted</em>]" is used to show that 168 was not left out by a printing error, there is no section 168 in the law, although there is a 169.</p>
