NO HANDCUFFS FOR LIGHT SINS

The 'ease of doing business' ethos gets a major fillip as Gujarat decriminalises 516 offences in a new Bill

- By Jumana Shah

AS AN ENTIRE ONE-THIRD OF ITS imprisonment clauses go off the statute, ease of doing business just got easier in Gujarat. Actually, for a lot of the state’s business class, life wasn’t as easy as legend might have had it. A 2022 study had found that Gujarat’s 1,469 imprisonment clauses were the highest in the country. Now, that has been hacked down to 953. The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, passed by the state assembly in September, has decriminalised 516 offences.

To be more precise, the punitive burden they carry has been lightened to more rational levels. Decriminalisation doesn’t mean blanket amnesty. Instead, criminal sanctions or conviction-based fines have been dropped for administrative penalties—with these getting tightened to ensure deterrence.

A LIGHTER SENTENCE