New Delhi, Nov. 19: The law ministry has turned down the women and child welfare ministry’s request to give the National Commission for Women statutory powers to arrest, punish and penalise those accused of domestic and matrimonial violence against women.

Union law minister Sadananda Gowda said his ministry had recently rejected the request, saying the NCW couldn’t be given powers vested only with the judiciary.

“We told them no such power can be given to the NCW because it can be exercised only by the judiciary through due process of law,” the minister told reporters.

Gowda also said the Centre would amend the Lokpal act to ensure that the leader of the largest single party finds a place in the panel to select the anti-corruption ombudsman. Under the existing act, the leader of the Opposition should be on the panel.

Following the Narendra Modi government’s refusal to grant the Congress the status of leader of Opposition (LoP), the Supreme Court, while hearing a PIL challenging certain provisions of the act, had asked how it proposed to fill the vacuum in the absence of an LoP.

Gowda said the government was working on a policy to reduce the number of cases in courts and prevent inter-ministerial and inter-departmental litigations. In the coming winter session, the government, he added, would bring amendments to the arbitration law to settle commercial disputes.

Other proposed bills, he said, include amendments to the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, and the Special Marriage Act, 1954, to make irretrievable breakdown of marriage a ground for divorce. Irretrievable breakdown of marriage is not a ground for divorce now.

Gowda said a fresh bill would be introduced as an earlier one, which the previous government had managed to pass in the Lok Sabha, could not be taken up in the Rajya Sabha and had lapsed.