The Union Government on 27 March 2026 introduced the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2026 in the Lok Sabha, proposing amendments to 784 provisions across 79 central laws administered by 23 Ministries. Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada tabled the Bill, which seeks to decriminalise 717 offences by replacing imprisonment clauses for minor technical or procedural violations with monetary penalties, warnings, or advisory notices.
Background
The Bill represents the third phase of the government's decriminalisation drive. The Jan Vishwas Act, 2023 decriminalised 183 provisions across 42 central Acts. The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2025, introduced in the Lok Sabha on 18 August 2025, proposed amendments to 355 provisions across 16 central Acts and was referred to a Select Committee chaired by Tejasvi Surya. The committee held 49 sittings and submitted its report on 13 March 2026. The 2026 Bill substantially expands the scope of the earlier proposal, targeting provisions spread across 79 statutes rather than the original 16.
The initiative is rooted in the government's ease of doing business agenda, which has identified the excessive criminalisation of minor regulatory non-compliance as a deterrent to entrepreneurship and business formation.
Key Provisions
The Bill envisages a structural shift from criminal to civil and administrative enforcement:
Scope: 717 provisions across 79 central Acts administered by 23 Ministries and Departments are proposed for decriminalisation, with a total of more than 1,000 offences being rationalised.
Penalty substitution: Imprisonment clauses for minor, technical, or procedural defaults are replaced with graduated monetary penalties, compounding mechanisms, warnings, or advisory notices.
Removal of redundancies: Outdated and redundant provisions that no longer serve a regulatory purpose are proposed for deletion.
Administrative adjudication: The Bill shifts adjudicatory authority for specified offences from criminal courts to designated administrative officers, reducing the burden on the criminal justice system.
The Opposition raised objections during introduction. Congress members K. Kavya and G.K. Padavi opposed the Bill, arguing that replacing imprisonment with fines could disproportionately benefit wealthy offenders and affect the basic structure of the Constitution. They urged referral to a select or joint parliamentary committee for further scrutiny.
Implications for Practitioners
The cumulative impact of three Jan Vishwas iterations is transformative for regulatory compliance practice. Businesses operating across multiple regulated sectors — manufacturing, environmental compliance, food safety, labour welfare — will need to map which specific offences affecting their operations have been reclassified and recalibrate their compliance frameworks accordingly.
For corporate counsel, the shift from criminal to civil liability fundamentally changes risk assessment. Provisions that previously carried the threat of imprisonment for directors and key managerial personnel will now attract only monetary penalties, altering the cost-benefit analysis of compliance investment.
Criminal defence practitioners should note the reduced caseload implications for Magistrate courts, which currently handle a significant volume of regulatory prosecution cases. The administrative adjudication mechanism creates a new forum that will require familiarity with departmental procedures rather than criminal trial advocacy.
The Bill's passage timeline remains to be seen, given the Opposition's demand for committee referral.