Appoint legal draftsmen to avoid ambiguities: FM

New Delhi: The government has accepted that there are drafting errors in important laws including the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Act, Income-Tax (I-T) Act and Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

In the SEZ Act the definition of vacant land has not been provided and it needs a redressal by the law ministry, finance minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday.

Mr Chidambaram said that all types of conundrums arise because of these drafting errors. He also proposed that every ministry should appoint a legal draftsmen to avoid ambiguities while bringing notifications or announcement.

���What is vacant land? A vacant land, for me, is a land which is vacant. Can there be vacant land which is not vacant? May be there are, the law ministry will tell,��� he said at a function of Indian Law Institute here. Referring to the dispute over definition of petroleum and natural gas for the purpose of income tax he said that while section 42, 44 and 293A of the I-T Act define petroleum and natural gas as mineral oil, subsection 9 of section 80 I (b) is silent on that.

The matter is presently before the Supreme Court. Also there are confusions in the section 72 of the I-T Act where each subsection has overriding power over the previous one.