The Jan Vishwas Bill 2.0 passed by Parliament on Thursday can impact around 5 crore pending court cases involving minor offences and the Commerce and Industry Ministry wants all the departments to consider withdrawing them, a senior official said Friday.
Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2026 seeks to amend 79 Central Acts administered by 23 Ministries to promote ease of doing business and ease of living.
Through the amendments the 784 provisions of various laws are being proposed to be changed for decriminalising and rationalising about 1,000 minor offences to further improve the business environment and check harassment of people.
“All of these 1000 actions one way or the other, some place or the other were a source of uncertainty, were a source of potential rent seeking, and a source of harassment. We have removed all of that,” commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said
“For decades citizens have been governed by laws with a colonial mindset where justice was not the preeminent objective. Punishment prevailed over fairness.”
“Because of the changes which are coming up in the law, there is a greater case that in all these provisions, a review can be taken up. We will also be taking up with the law ministry and work out how it can be conveyed to the departments concerned,” Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Amardeep Singh Bhatia told reporters.
As part of the general drive to reduce load on the courts, he said, the government has advised all departments to review pending cases and withdraw the prosecution wherever possible.
“There is a general advisory which is already there to review all pending cases and wherever the departments feel that they need to be withdrawn as they are not very critical offences, they can file with the court to withdraw that,” he added.