717 Offences. Zero Jail. India’s Biggest Trust Experiment.

On April 2, 2026, Parliament passed the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2026 — the largest single decriminalization exercise in India's legislative history. The bill amends 784 provisions across 79 Central Acts administered by 23 different Ministries.

The core idea: replace jail time for minor, technical, and procedural offences with civil penalties, warnings, and advisories. The government calls it a shift from a punitive colonial framework to a “trust-based” governance model.

This is the third iteration of the Jan Vishwas initiative. The first, in 2023, decriminalized 183 provisions across 42 laws. A second version introduced in August 2025 was withdrawn and replaced by a much larger bill after a Select Committee — chaired by MP Tejasvi Surya — held 49 sittings and recommended expanding the scope to 65 additional Acts.

Of the 784 amendments, 717 target business compliance (Ease of Doing Business) and 67 target everyday life (Ease of Living). Here are the changes that affect ordinary citizens:

For businesses, the changes are more sweeping. A factory owner who violates a provision of the Apprentices Act will now receive an advisory for the first offence, a warning for the second, and a civil penalty only for the third and subsequent violations. No more jail for a first-time paperwork error.

This is where it gets uncomfortable. The bill amends the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. Under the old law, manufacturing or selling violations could mean imprisonment up to one year and a fine of ₹20,000. Under the new law, the same violation carries a civil penalty of ₹1 lakh or three times the confiscated value — whichever is higher.

Similarly, the National Highways Act changes are significant. Making a highway unsafe previously carried up to 5 years in jail. Now? A civil penalty between ₹10 lakh and ₹1 crore.

The opposition's objection wasn't just about content — it was about process. Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil called the bill a “betrayal of public trust” despite its name, arguing that a 340-page bill affecting 79 laws was rushed through without adequate time for members to study or propose amendments.

The DMK's P. Wilson demanded the bill be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee for broader deliberation. Trinamool Congress walked out of Rajya Sabha entirely, demanding to know why the government rushed complex legislation at the end of the Budget Session.

The government's counter: the bill was examined over 49 sittings by a Select Committee. The expanded version incorporated recommendations from that committee. This wasn't rushed — it was refined.

India's legal system carries the weight of colonial-era laws where minor procedural defaults could lead to criminal prosecution. The Jan Vishwas initiative is an attempt to modernize this framework — shifting from punishment-first to compliance-first governance.

For MSMEs, this matters most. A small business owner no longer faces the threat of jail for a technical violation on a customs form or an apprenticeship regulation. The fear of criminal prosecution for paperwork errors has long been cited as a barrier to entrepreneurship in India.

On the judicial side, shifting hundreds of offences from criminal courts to administrative officers could ease the burden on an already strained judiciary with over 5 crore pending cases.

Here's the part nobody in Parliament debated. Every penalty in this bill is a flat amount. A ₹1 lakh fine for a drug violation is the same whether you're a street-corner chemist in rural Bihar or a pharmaceutical company with ₹5,000 crore in revenue.

For context: India's median annual household income is roughly ₹1.8 lakh. A ₹1 lakh fine is more than half a family's yearly income. For a large company, it's a rounding error in the quarterly accounts — literally the cost of a team lunch.

This isn't a new problem. 22 European countries use what's called a “day-fine” system — where fines are calculated based on the offender's daily income. Finland famously fined a Nokia executive €116,000 for speeding in 2002 because the fine was pegged to his earnings. The same offence for a minimum-wage worker would have been €200.

India's Justice Malimath Committee flagged this issue back in 2003 — noting that inflation erodes the deterrent value of fixed fines while income levels rise. The Jan Vishwas Bill doesn't address this. Its 10% auto-increase every three years adjusts for inflation, but not for inequality.