The Government of India announced the introduction of Jan Vishwas 2.0 — the second iteration of its legislative decriminalisation initiative — as part of the Union Budget 2025-26 presented on 1 February 2025. The proposed legislation seeks to decriminalise over 100 provisions across multiple business-related statutes by replacing imprisonment clauses for minor, technical, or procedural defaults with monetary penalties and administrative adjudication mechanisms.
Background
The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023 had amended 42 laws in its first iteration, converting several minor criminal offences into civil penalties. The rationale was that criminalising routine compliance failures — such as delayed filings, minor procedural errors, and technical violations — had created a disproportionate deterrent effect on business activity without meaningfully enhancing regulatory compliance. The 2023 Act was widely regarded as a positive step toward rationalising the criminal law exposure of businesses and their directors.
Jan Vishwas 2.0 builds on this foundation, extending the decriminalisation exercise to additional statutes covering municipal governance, motor vehicle regulation, commodity boards, apprenticeships, export-related activities, and other regulatory domains.
Key Provisions
The proposed legislation encompasses the following reforms:
Scale of decriminalisation: A total of 355 provisions across 16 Acts are proposed to be amended. Of these, 288 provisions are to be decriminalised to promote ease of doing business, while 67 provisions are proposed to be amended to facilitate ease of living for citizens.
Imprisonment replaced by monetary penalties: For minor and technical offences, imprisonment clauses are being replaced with monetary penalties, enabling administrative adjudication without the need for criminal court prosecution. This fundamentally shifts the enforcement model from criminal to regulatory.
First-offence advisory mechanism: For 76 offences under 10 Acts, first-time contraventions will attract an advisory or warning rather than an immediate penalty. This graduated enforcement approach recognises that many non-compliance instances are inadvertent.
Administrative adjudication: The shift from criminal prosecution to administrative penalties necessitates the creation or strengthening of adjudicatory mechanisms within regulatory bodies, enabling faster resolution of compliance disputes.
Implications for Practitioners
This legislative initiative represents a structural shift in India's approach to business regulation. Corporate compliance practitioners should anticipate a fundamentally different risk landscape for their clients — where routine compliance failures no longer carry the existential threat of criminal prosecution and personal liability for directors and officers.
For criminal law practitioners, the progressive decriminalisation of business offences will reduce the volume of economic offence matters before criminal courts. However, the monetary penalties that replace imprisonment may still be substantial, and practitioners should advise clients on the administrative adjudication procedures that will govern these disputes.
Company secretaries and compliance officers should map their organisations' regulatory exposure against the provisions proposed for decriminalisation, identifying areas where existing compliance frameworks may be recalibrated in light of the reduced penal consequences.
The first-offence advisory mechanism is particularly noteworthy. It introduces a statutory basis for regulatory forbearance that could shape enforcement culture across multiple regulatory bodies if implemented effectively.