New Delhi, April 3 -- Parliament on Thursday passed the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2026, marking a significant step toward decriminalising and rationalising offences across multiple central legislations to promote ease of doing business and ease of living.

Addressing a press conference, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal described the reform as unprecedented in scale. "I could not find any parallel anywhere in the world and certainly never in India... 1,000 provisions of the law covering a span of 79 different Acts of Parliament have been addressed in one stroke," he said, adding that "79 Acts with over 1,000 sections have been modified," including six laws dating back to the pre-independence era.

The Bill replaces th...