To foster a business and industry friendly environment within the state, the Haryana government is reviewing 319 Acts to identify provisions that could be decriminalised.
Haryana Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal has directed all administrative secretaries to submit a report on the decriminalisation of laws and Acts in their respective departments within a fortnight.
Kaushal said the primary goal is to avoid registering first information reports (FIRs), imprisoning people, or putting them on trial for minor violations of these laws, which are not serious in nature.
“Instead of treating them as criminal acts, they may be treated as civil offenses or regulated through administrative measures, fines, or other non-criminal penalties,” he added.
The Chief Secretary said the goal is to foster a business- and industry-friendly environment within the state, recognising that certain minor transgressions may occur as part of regular work and should not be categorised as criminal offenses.
He said various departments of the state government have taken this initiative enthusiastically and so far, 28 Acts have been successfully decriminalized.
Kaushal said that the departments are actively engaged in the exercise and have been conducting an exhaustive analysis of Acts, Rules, Regulations, and Notifications to reduce the burdensome compliances in the state.
Since the inception of the “Reducing Compliance Burden Exercise”, Haryana has reduced the burden of over 500 compliances, including the decriminalization of Acts across departments, he said.
The objective of this exercise is to improve the ease of doing business and ease of living for citizens by reducing burdensome compliances prescribed in the Acts or rules. The exercise aims to simplify, digitize, decriminalize, and rationalize compliances, an official spokesperson said.