Lok Sabha passes Jan Vishwas Bill aimed at improving ease of doing business

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill during the monsoon session of the parliament. The bill was first introduced in December last year and subsequently referred to the joint committee of the parliament.

The parliamentary committee had said that the government should encourage states and union territories to take up decriminalizing minor offenses along the lines of Jan Vishwas Bill, to promote ease of doing business in the country.

The bill proposes to decriminalize 183 provisions in 42 legislations including over half a dozen colonial era laws to make doing business easier.

The NDA government has repealed 1,486 laws and once the present bill gets parliament’s nod, the number of laws removed from statute books will go up to 1,562, law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said.

The 108-page Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill covers the Boilers Act, The Aadhar Act, 2016, the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, The Collection of Statistics Act, The Government Securities Act, 2006, and The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, among others.

Besides decriminalization of minor offenses, the Bill envisages the rationalization of monetary penalties. It proposes a 10% increase in the minimum amount of fine and penalty levied, after every three years of enactment of the Act.

“A web of outdated rules and regulations causes trust deficit. It has been the endeavor of the government to achieve the principle of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’, redefining the regulatory landscape of the country under the Ease of Living and Ease of Doing Business reforms..." said Goyal in the ‘statement and objectives’ of the Bill.

Meghwal added that he was moving an official amendment to add 11 more bills to the list, bringing the total to 76. The 11 bills added through the amendment are colonial-era laws, he stressed.

He said the repealing of old laws is part of the government’s efforts to improve “ease of living as well as ease of doing business". In his brief remarks, the minister took a jibe at the previous UPA government, saying not even a single law, which is not required in the current scenario, was repealed.

The Repealing and Amending Bill also aims to correct a “patent error” in one of the laws by replacing certain words. The bill is one of the periodical measures by which enactments that have ceased to be in force or have become obsolete or the retention as a separate Act is unnecessary are repealed.

The bill proposes to repeal the Land Acquisition (Mines) Act, 1885.

It also seeks to repeal the Telegraph Wires (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1950. Under the law, “Whoever is found or is proved to have been in possession of any quantity of telegraph wires shall unless he proves that the telegraph wires came into his possession lawfully, be punishable, for the first offense, with imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine …. ” The bill also seeks to repeal certain Appropriation Acts passed by Parliament in the recent past.

Once the principal Act is amended, the amendment laws lose relevance. Their presence in the statute books as independent laws becomes unnecessary and they only clog the system.

According to the third schedule of the bill, in section 31A, in sub-section (3), for the words “that Central Government”, the words “that Government” will be substituted in The Factoring Regulation Act, 2011.

(With PTI inputs)