The Jan Vishwas (Amendment) Bill 2025, is set to be introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 18, 2025, by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, before the monsoon session of the Parliament concludes.
The Lok Sabha’s website lists the bill as an attempt to “amend certain enactments for decriminalising and rationalising offences to further enhance trust-based governance for ease of living and doing business”.
The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2025, will have over 350 provisions proposed to be added to amend it to “decriminalise certain minor offences to promote ease of living and business” and improve the business climate of the country.
While it remains to be seen which offences would be deemed as ‘minor’, an official of the Indian government said the move will help create a more conducive and citizen-centric environment for doing business in the country.
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Earlier in 2023, the Jan Vishwas (Amendment to Provisions) Act was enacted, which decriminalised 183 provisions in 42 Central Acts administered by 19 ministries and departments, including removal of imprisonment and/or fines.
While imprisonment was removed and fine retained in a few rules, in some others, imprisonment and fine were converted to a penalty.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech on August 15, had talked about certain laws that “provide imprisonment over trivial matters”.
“There are laws in our country, astonishing as it may sound, that provide for imprisonment over trivial matters, and no one ever paid attention to them. I have taken it upon myself to ensure that such unnecessary laws, which place Indian citizens behind bars, are abolished. We had introduced a bill in Parliament earlier; we have brought it again this time," he said.
The government had earlier abolished more than 40,000 compliances that is deemed unnecessary. It had also scrapped over 1,500 obsolete laws.
"We have gone to Parliament to amend dozens of laws to simplify them, always placing the interests of the public first," the PM said on Friday.
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