The Jan Vishwas Bill, 2022
#GS-02 Governance
For Prelims
The Jan Vishwas Bill, 2022:
- The Jan Vishwas Bill, 2022 has been introduced with the objective of “decriminalising” 183 offences across 42 laws.
- This is expected to enhance the ease of living and doing business in India.
- The Bill aims to change the penal provisions and replaces them with fines in case of minor offenses across 42 laws.
- Some of such acts includes Air Act, Environment Protection Act, Forest Act, Drugs and Cosmetics Acts, Cinematograph Act, Patents Act and others.
- The bill also aims at rationalising monetary penalties based on the gravity of the offence thereby bolstering trust-based governance.
- The idea behind the bill was proposed by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
For Mains
The need for the bill
- The fear of imprisonment for minor offenses is seen as a major factor in slowing down the growth of the business ecosystem.
- This also results in the erosion of individual confidence.
- The presence of a large number of outdated rules and regulations causes trust deficit.
- The governments ideology of Minimum Government, Maximum Governance and the need to redefine the regulatory landscape of the country under the Ease of Living and Ease of Doing Business reforms.
The threat of Overcriminalisation
- The criminalisation has often been used by governments to put across a strong image instead of a method to punish wrongful conduct.
- This phenomenon has been termed “overcriminalisation” by scholars.
- Such decisions often have little in the way of justifications.
The need for Decriminalisation
- As per the National Judicial Data Grid, nearly 3.2 crore cases of the 4.3 crore pending cases are in relation to criminal proceedings.
- As per the Prison Statistics 2021 of the National Crime Records Bureau, a total of 5.54 lakh prisoners were confined in prisons against a capacity of 4.25 lakh.
