Jan Vishwas Bill widens decriminalisation drive

The 2026 Bill decriminalises minor offences across 79 Central Acts run by 23 Ministries — the sequel to the 2023 Act.

What happened

• The Government has brought forward the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2026, a single omnibus law that edits many statutes at once to strip criminal liability from minor, technical and procedural lapses.
• The Bill proposes amendments in 79 Central Acts administered by 23 Ministries, touching 784 provisions in all.
• Of those 784 provisions, 717 are taken up for decriminalisation and 67 for improving ease of living.
• Where an offence is minor, the Bill replaces jail terms and criminal fines with civil penalties or administrative mechanisms — the state still penalises, but no longer drags a citizen through the criminal-justice system for a paperwork slip.
• It is the direct successor to the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023, which amended 42 Central Acts and decriminalised 183 provisions, and it widens that experiment by a large margin.
• The measure followed a long parliamentary route: introduced first as a smaller 2025 Bill, sent to a Select Committee that held 49 sittings, and reported back in March 2026 before being recast in its present, far larger form.

Background & context

India's statute book carried, over decades, a thick layer of criminal penalties for routine business and civic conduct — imprisonment or criminal fines attached to late filings, register entries, signage, minor licensing lapses and similar acts that carry no real harm or intent to defraud. Each such provision means a citizen or a small enterprise can, in principle, face arrest, a criminal record and court appearances for a clerical or procedural error. This was widely seen as a drag on both the ease of doing business and the ease of living, and as a source of avoidable litigation and rent-seeking.

The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023 was the first systematic answer. Rather than amend each statute through a separate bill, it used the omnibus device — one law that simultaneously amends many Central Acts — to decriminalise 183 provisions across 42 Central Acts. The legislative philosophy was that the criminal sanction should be reserved for conduct that is genuinely wrongful, while minor breaches should attract civil penalties, monetary fines fixed by an adjudicating officer, or warnings, with the option of appeal to a designated authority rather than a criminal trial.

The 2026 Bill is the second, larger wave of the same drive. Its legislative journey is itself examinable. A Jan Vishwas Bill, 2025 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 18 August 2025, covering a modest set of 16 Central Acts, 10 Ministries and 355 provisions. It was referred to a Select Committee, which held 49 sittings, examined an additional 62 Acts for decriminalisation, and submitted its report to the Lok Sabha on 13 March 2026. Acting on that scrutiny, the Government revised and enlarged the measure into the present 2026 Bill — 79 Acts, 23 Ministries, 784 provisions. The jump from 16 to 79 Acts is the headline change between the introduced version and the revised version.

For Prelims

• Name: Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2026. "Jan Vishwas" literally means "public trust" — the theme is simplifying laws to strengthen trust between citizen and state.
• Type: an omnibus amendment Bill — one Bill amending many Central Acts at once, not a fresh standalone statute creating a new body or scheme.
• Scale: 79 Central Acts · 23 Ministries · 784 provisions (717 for decriminalisation + 67 for ease of living).
• Predecessor: Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023 — 42 Central Acts, 183 provisions decriminalised. The 2026 Bill is its sequel, not a replacement.
• The four pillars: (1) Warning before Punishment; (2) Proportionate Penalties; (3) Faster and Fair Resolution — dedicated adjudicating officers and appellate authorities; (4) Dynamic Penalty Framework — penalties revised periodically rather than left frozen by statute.
• Mechanism: replaces imprisonment and criminal fines for minor, non-fraudulent breaches with civil penalties imposed by an adjudicating officer, with an appeal route — keeping such matters out of the criminal courts.
• Legislative trail: 2025 Bill (16 Acts, 10 Ministries, 355 provisions) → Select Committee (49 sittings; reported 13 March 2026; examined 62 more Acts) → 2026 Bill (79 Acts, 23 Ministries, 784 provisions).
• Citizen-centric examples: Railways Act, 1989 — refusing to vacate a reserved berth becomes a civil penalty up to ₹1,000; Calcutta Metro Railway Act, 1985 — smoking now a ₹2,000 civil penalty; Clinical Establishments Act, 2010 — civil penalty up to ₹10,000 for minor deficiencies; Court Fees Act, 1870 — imprisonment replaced by a monetary penalty for non-fraudulent acts.
• Ease-of-living examples: NDMC Act, 1994 (Sec 295) — illegal use of public water now a ₹1,000 civil penalty, and NDMC property tax standardised to the Unit Area Method; Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 — a 30-day grace period after a driving licence expires, 12 extra months (Sec 166) to seek accident compensation, and ticketless travel (Sec 178) reclassified as a civil matter; Delhi Police Act, 1978 (Sec 102(c)) — the colonial-era "being outdoors at night" offence abolished.
• Business / MSME examples: MMDR Act, 1957 — imprisonment replaced by a penalty up to ₹50 lakh; Private Security Agencies Act, 2005 — a ₹25,000 fine provision removed; Copyright Act, 1957 — the false-Register-entry penal provision removed; plus Central Silk Board Act 1948, Tea Act 1953, APEDA Act 1985, Coir Industry Act 1953, Legal Metrology Act 2009, Apprentices Act 1961 (three-stage enforcement).
• What it is NOT: it is not a new criminal code and it does not repeal the underlying Acts — it only edits selected penal provisions inside them. It does not decriminalise serious offences, fraud or conduct done with wrongful intent; the civil-penalty route applies to minor, technical, non-fraudulent breaches only. It is not the same as the 2023 Act (different scale, a separate later measure) and is distinct from the criminal-law overhaul under the three new criminal codes (BNS / BNSS / BSA), which is a different reform stream.
• The full Jan Vishwas family (for "how many / which" questions): (1) Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023 — 42 Acts, 183 provisions; (2) Jan Vishwas Bill, 2025 — 16 Acts, 355 provisions (introduced, then enlarged); (3) Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2026 — 79 Acts, 784 provisions.

Why it matters

The problem the Bill addresses is over-criminalisation — the accumulation, over many decades, of jail-and-fine clauses for conduct that is at most a minor lapse. The cost of that is real: a citizen who lets a licence lapse, or a small firm that misses a filing, can be exposed to criminal process, a court appearance and a record, which deters enterprise and clogs the lower courts with cases that carry no public-harm content. By converting these to civil penalties resolved by an adjudicating officer, the Bill aims to reduce the fear of criminal liability, cut avoidable litigation, free judicial bandwidth, and improve both the ease of doing business (for MSMEs especially) and the ease of living (for ordinary citizens dealing with transport, civic and railway rules).

Its design also matters as a model of governance reform. The four-pillar structure — a warning before punishment, penalties proportionate to the breach, faster resolution through dedicated officers, and a dynamic framework that revises penalty amounts periodically so they neither become trivial with inflation nor remain frozen — is a template that can be reused across the statute book. The use of the omnibus amendment technique, editing dozens of Acts in one Bill, is itself a notable instrument of legislative housekeeping. At the same time, the reform invites a counter-question that Mains rewards: whether shifting penalties from criminal courts to executive adjudicating officers, with periodic executive revision of penalty amounts, concentrates discretion in the administration and needs strong safeguards, transparency and appellate independence to avoid arbitrariness.

For Mains

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