What is Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2022?

New Delhi, Dec 22: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday introduced the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2022, to decriminalise minor offences to promote ease of business.

Besides the decriminalisation of minor offences, the bill envisages the rationalisation of monetary penalties, depending on the gravity of the offence, bolstering trust-based governance. ''Yet another novelty involved in the proposal is an increase of 10 per cent of the minimum amount of fine and penalty levied, after the expiry of every three years, once the bill becomes a law,'' according to the statement of objects and reasons.

The bill was later referred to a 31-member joint committee of Parliament for scrutiny. The members from the Lok Sabha include PP Chaudhary, Sanjay Jaiswal, Rajendra Agrawal, Poonam Pramod Mahajan, Gaurav Gogoi, A Raja and Sougata Ray. The names of 10 members from the Rajya Sabha will be announced later.

The bill was introduced amid protests by the Opposition who were demanding a discussion on the border issue with China. As opposition protests continued during the introduction of the Bill, Rama Devi, who was chairing the proceedings, adjourned the House for the day.

The Union Cabinet had earlier approved a bill to decriminalise minor offences by rationalising related provisions under different ministries to ensure ease of doing business. The proposal was mooted by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), as reported by PTI.

The bill proposes to rationalise about 110 provisions across 35 Acts administered by 16 ministries/departments.

Explaining the rationale behind the proposed legislation, one of the sources said that taking the reform agenda to the next level, the government is focussing on reducing the overall compliance burden for businesses and citizens. For this, a four-pronged strategy of simplification, digitisation, decriminalisation of provisions for minor offences, and elimination of redundant laws/rules has been adopted to deliver the desired objectives of this initiative.

After a comprehensive consultation with all the key stakeholders, the department finalised the bill. The DPIIT has received reports and recommendations from industry bodies related to archaic criminal provisions in existing laws.

The bill seeks to decriminalise imprisonment provisions related minor offences to trivial procedural violations from 35 Acts.

About 110 such provisions are proposed to be amended through this one bill. "The department has observed that these provisions have not been invoked many times, but there is fear in the minds of industry about those provisions. The idea is to replace imprisonment with penalties or graded punishment," they added. These 35 laws are administered by various Union ministries and departments, including finance, food production and distribution, financial services, agriculture, commerce, environment, road transport and highways, defence, posts, electronics and IT.