The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act 2023

In one line

One Act of Parliament amended forty-two statutes at once, and three of them are on this syllabus.

In exam wording: the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act 2023, Act 18 of 2023, received assent on 11 August 2023 and is an Act to amend certain enactments for decriminalising and rationalising offences to further enhance trust-based governance for ease of living and doing business; section 2 amends the forty-two enactments in the Schedule; section 3 escalates every minimum fine and penalty by ten per cent every three years; section 4 saves what was already done; and the amendments to the Air Act 1981, the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 and the Public Liability Insurance Act 1991 came into force on 1 April 2024.

The shape of the Act

Learn the shape and the rest follows, because the Act itself is only four sections long. Everything of substance is in the Schedule.

Section 1. Short title and commencement. And an unusual commencement clause: the Act comes into force on such date as the Central Government may appoint by notification, "and different dates may be appointed for amendments relating to different enactments mentioned in the Schedule". So the forty-two statutes did not all change on the same day.

Section 2. The enactments in column (4) of the Schedule are amended to the extent and in the manner in column (5).

Section 3. The revision clause, set out below.

Section 4. Savings. The amendment or repeal does not affect anything already done or suffered, any right, obligation or liability already accrued, any remedy or proceeding in respect of it, or any past act. It does not revive anything not now in force.

Section 3: the escalation clause

The fines and penalties provided under various provisions in the enactments mentioned in the Schedule shall be increased by ten per cent. of the minimum amount of fine or penalty, as the case may be, prescribed therefor, after the expiry of every three years from the date of commencement of this Act.

This is the most quotable provision in the Act and students almost never know it. Four points.

It is automatic. No notification, no amendment, no Board decision. The increase happens by force of the section on the expiry of each three-year period.

It is ten per cent of the minimum, not of the amount imposed. A penalty whose minimum is ten thousand rupees rises by one thousand rupees, not by ten per cent of whatever the adjudicating officer decides.

It is simple and not compound, on the words used: ten per cent of the minimum prescribed, added each time.

It solves a real problem. The Water Act's original fines had not moved since 1974, by which time inflation had reduced them to nothing. Rather than requiring Parliament to amend the figures every few years, section 3 indexes them. Whether ten per cent of a minimum every three years actually keeps pace is a fair criticism to make, but the mechanism is sound.