Critically examine whether decriminalising offences under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 through the Jan Vishwas reforms balances ease of doing business with consumer protection.

The Legal Metrology Act, 2009 regulates the weights and measures used in trade. The Jan Vishwas Bill, 2026 replaced the 2025 Bill and amends 80 central Acts [1]. It softens penalties under this Act. The reform strikes a fair balance for procedural lapses, but it is weaker on short-weighing, which directly cheats consumers.

Gains for ease of doing business

• Improvement notice: a first offence of making, using or selling non-standard weights now brings an order to fix the problem within a set time, not punishment [1].
• Graded penalties: the Select Committee (Chair: Tejasvi Surya) recommended civil penalties instead of criminal fines for repeat offences [2]. The 2026 Bill imposes a civil penalty for second offences in certain cases [1].
• Less litigation: many offences, such as false returns, are technical. PRS notes that keeping jail terms for such lapses defeats the Bill's own aim [3].
• Digital enablers: the e-Maap portal and India's OIML-CS Issuing Authority status cut compliance costs and repeat testing [4].

Risks to consumer protection

• Weak deterrence: traders are caught only when inspected, so a penalty-free first offence makes cheating cheap. PRS notes that the Bill does not assess whether improvement notices work [3].
• Low base: fines rise by 10% of the minimum every three years [5], but PRS warns that this rise starts from a low base [3].
• Due-process gaps: the 2022 Joint Committee said every civil-penalty law needs its own adjudication and appeal mechanism [3]. If one department inspects, accuses and punishes, it invites rent-seeking.
• Delegation: the Select Committee wants minimum and maximum penalties written into the Act, not left to Rules [2].

Way forward

• Differentiate: use notices for paperwork lapses, and impose a meaningful first-instance penalty for short-weighing. This follows the Committee's principle that penalties must match the offence and the offender's profile [2].
• Track offenders: use e-Maap to record every past offence so that graded penalties identify repeat offenders [4].
• Common scale: adopt a penalty scale like the UK's five levels, so that one amendment updates every fine [3].
• Appeals: name adjudicating officers and appellate authorities in the Act itself. The 2026 Bill already does this for certain Acts [1].

Jan Vishwas rightly stops treating honest traders' technical errors as crimes, but so far the balance is only partial. Penalties scaled to the harm caused, backed by digital records and fair adjudication, would combine trust-based regulation with the consumer's right to an accurate measure. That would suit a country hosting the 61st CIML Meeting [4].