Mindless law and its application a threat to democratic society
By K Raveendran
Passage of the Jan Vishwas amendment bill marks a significant moment in the long and uneven effort to make the legal system less hostile to ordinary citizens. Its importance lies not merely in the number of provisions it has altered, diluted or removed, but in the political and moral signal it sends. For too long, governance in India has rested on a dense web of criminal penalties, compliance traps and petty regulatory threats that treated citizens, entrepreneurs and small businesses less as participants in a democratic republic and more as potential offenders waiting to be disciplined. Removal of more than a thousand outdated or excessive legal provisions is therefore no minor housekeeping exercise. It is an overdue acknowledgement that a modern state cannot govern a free people through fear of prosecution for technical lapses and obsolete offences.
That the bill moved through Parliament without dramatic confrontation or sustained national debate does not reduce its weight. Some of the most meaningful reforms are not accompanied by spectacle. This legislation matters because it challenges an entrenched habit within the administrative state: the instinct to criminalise first and regulate later. Across decades, India accumulated a legal culture in which imprisonment and prosecution became routine answers even to conduct that caused little real public harm. This tendency did not simply burden courts and prisons. It also created a climate of insecurity. A citizen could be trapped not because he posed a danger to society, but because he had failed to comply with some archaic procedural requirement buried in a rulebook. That kind of legal order weakens democracy from within, because it turns law into an instrument of intimidation rather than justice.
Yet celebration must be tempered by realism. The Jan Vishwas measure eases one layer of legal excess, but it does not end the deeper problem. Many harsh provisions remain on the books. State agencies still retain powers that can be deployed selectively. Police authorities and regulators still operate within a framework where discretion is often vast and accountability uneven. In such an environment, repeal of mindless laws is welcome, but it is not enough. A republic does not become genuinely law-governed merely by deleting obsolete provisions. It becomes worthy of public trust only when its legal system is predictable, proportionate and fair in practice.
That is why the larger question raised by this moment is not how many laws have been amended, but what philosophy of law India now intends to embrace. If the purpose of the reform is simply to improve the ease of doing business or reduce compliance burdens, that is useful but incomplete. The deeper purpose should be to restore the dignity of the citizen before the state. Law should protect the vulnerable, punish genuine wrongdoing and maintain public order. It should not exist as a permanent reservoir of coercive power waiting to be activated at convenience. When the average person believes that any official can discover some provision to harass, threaten or prosecute him, faith in institutions erodes. A society cannot cultivate respect for law when its citizens experience law primarily as fear.
This is where the observation made by CJI Surya Kant in Goa recently acquires particular force. Law without compassion does indeed become tyranny, just as compassion without law can descend into disorder. That formulation captures the central dilemma of any constitutional democracy. Mere legality is not enough. A state may act strictly within the letter of law and still produce gross injustice if the law itself is insensitive, disproportionate or selectively enforced. On the other hand, a legal system that abandons structure and consistency in the name of sympathy risks arbitrariness of another kind. The task, then, is balance: law anchored in principle, tempered by humanity and administered with restraint.
India’s difficulty has often been that restraint is weakest where it is needed most. The citizen’s encounter with the state is still too often mediated by lower-level enforcement, bureaucratic discretion and procedural opacity. Even when higher courts articulate noble constitutional principles, the everyday machinery of governance can remain punitive. A trader, journalist, activist, small manufacturer, or individual critic of authority does not experience the Constitution in the abstract. He experiences it through notices, inspections, summons, police complaints and the threat of prolonged litigation. If the law permits broad abuse at that level, then constitutional promises sound remote. Reform must therefore travel from Parliament’s statute book into the actual culture of administration.
This is why misuse of existing laws remains such a serious concern. India has no shortage of provisions that can be invoked expansively and, at times, vindictively. Some laws framed for public safety or order have repeatedly been used in circumstances where the state appeared more interested in control than justice. Others allow prolonged process to become punishment in itself. Even if final conviction is uncertain, the ordeal of investigation, arrest, bail conditions and court appearances can crush livelihoods and reputations. In such cases, the problem is not simply the wording of law, but the ecosystem of enforcement surrounding it. Repealing minor offences while leaving intact the habit of using serious provisions casually will only achieve partial relief.
A fair legal order must also be even-handed. Nothing corrodes confidence faster than the suspicion that law is strict for the weak and flexible for the powerful. When ordinary citizens face swift coercion for minor infractions while politically connected actors evade scrutiny or delay proceedings indefinitely, the rule of law turns into a slogan rather than a governing reality. Even-handedness requires more than judicial eloquence. It demands institutional discipline, transparent criteria for action and consequences for abuse of authority. Without these, any reform, however well-intentioned, risks being seen as cosmetic.
Excessive criminalisation narrows the space of citizenship. It conditions people to comply not because they consider the law legitimate, but because they fear entanglement. That is unhealthy for a free society. Democracies flourish when citizens feel secure enough to question, innovate, organise and participate without constant anxiety that an obscure provision may be used against them. The Jan Vishwas reform, by trimming legal overgrowth, hints at a more mature state-citizen relationship. But that relationship will remain fragile unless accompanied by wider changes in police reform, prosecutorial responsibility, administrative simplification and judicial speed.
Parliament has therefore opened a door, not completed a journey. The bill is important because it recognises a truth that citizens have long understood from experience: too many laws do not create more justice; they often create more opportunities for arbitrary power. But the logic of that recognition must now be carried further. India needs a sustained review of criminal statutes, regulatory offences and procedural powers that can be misused. It needs lawmakers willing to ask not only whether a law serves a purpose, but whether that purpose justifies the coercive means attached to it. It needs courts and institutions that insist that process itself must be fair, not merely formally valid.
For citizens to feel confidence in the law, they must believe that it stands above impulse, vendetta and selective zeal. They must see that justice is not an accident dependent on status, influence or judicial rescue at the final hour. They must know that the state cannot casually deprive them of liberty under the cover of outdated or excessive law. The Jan Vishwas amendment bill is worth welcoming because it acknowledges this principle, at least in part. But the promise it carries will be fulfilled only when the legal system as a whole reflects that same spirit: firmness where necessary, mercy where possible, and fairness at all times. (IPA Service)
