JAN VISHWAS BILL 2022

• It proposes to decriminalise many minor offences by replacing them with monetary penalties.
• A unique feature of 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 law.

• An unprincipled growth of criminal law has long been a cause of concern for scholars of law.
• Such growth is evident from the fact that criminal law is frequently used as a political tool; criminalisation often becomes a medium for governments to put across a strong image instead of punishing wrongful conduct.
• Governments offer little in the way of justifications to support such decisions.
• This phenomenon has been termed "overcriminalisation" by scholars.

4. National Judicial Data Grid

• The consequences are felt almost immediately. As per the National Judicial Data Grid, of the 4.3 crore pending cases, nearly 3.2 crore cases are about criminal proceedings.
• It is trite to say that the growing number of pending criminal cases shares a direct relationship with the number of criminal laws.
• Similarly, the rise in the prison population is also proof of overcriminalisation.
• As per the National Crime Records Bureau's Prison Statistics of 2021, a total of 5.54 lakh prisoners were confined in prisons against a capacity of 4.25 lakh.

5. Scope of the Bill

• These are primarily regulatory offences. By and large, an examination of the provisions of the Bill reveals that stress has been on the replacement of imprisonment clauses with fines.
• This can hardly be termed "decriminalisation".
• There is much that is required for the efforts aimed at decriminalisation to fructify in any meaningful way.

5.1. Quasi-decriminalisation

• The Bill undertakes what we may refer to as "quasi-decriminalisation". 
• The use of criminal laws in regulatory frameworks is particularly poignant.
• The distinction between regulatory offences and penal offences exemplifies the same through the functional distinction between a tax and a fine.
• The purpose of a tax is primarily regulatory, a fine carries with it an element of censure and stigma.
• This functional distinction is increasingly being diluted under our legislative frameworks which frequently deploy these elements of censure and stigma to regulatory domains.

5.2. Observer Research Foundation report

• The report titled Jailed for Doing Business found that there are more than 26, 134 imprisonment clauses in a total of 843 economic legislations, rules and regulations which seek to regulate business and economic activities in India.
• In this light, the number of offences deregulated under the Bill seems to be a mere drop in India's regulatory framework.

5.3. Prioritisation

5.4. Limited to regulatory domains

• The Bill conforms to the understanding of the government that decriminalisation should be limited to regulatory domains.
• The time is now ripe to shift focus to existing penal offences as well.
• Debates are ongoing about the decriminalisation of several penal offences such as sedition, offences under the NDPS Act and UAPA Acts, Triple talaq and anti-conversion laws etc.
• There is an urgent need to assess these offences on a principled basis.

6. The way ahead

• The intent of the Bill is merely to ensure that imprisonment is replaced with fines for as many offences as possible.
• The extent to which it succeeds in "decriminalising" offences, however, is questionable.
• If these faults are to be rectified, it is pertinent that a more comprehensive exercise is undertaken and that the government prioritises the needs and requirements of the criminal justice system.

For Prelims & Mains