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DTSTAMP:20261023T031134Z
DTSTART:20261128T110000Z
DTEND:20261128T123000Z
SUMMARY:Plenary session three: Should economic offences be settled withou
 t imprisonment? Deferred prosecution agreements
DESCRIPTION:India is in the midst of its most ambitious decriminalisation
  exercise in history. The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act (202
 6) decriminalises or rationalises over 717 offences across 79 Central Ac
 ts\, replacing imprisonment with civil penalties\, administrative adjudi
 cation and compounding across sectors from banking to intellectual prope
 rty. The Finance Bill (2026) grades punishment for tax defaults by quant
 um rather than mere non-compliance\, and in Sandesara-Sterling Biotech t
 he Supreme Court has endorsed settlement-driven resolution of high-value
  economic offences.\n\nYet India still recognises neither deferred prose
 cution agreements (DPAs) nor non-prosecution agreements and plea bargain
 ing remains barred for offences carrying more than seven years\, for tho
 se affecting the socio-economic condition of the country and for offence
 s against women and children. The case for a DPA regime nevertheless res
 urfaces\, driven by the pressure behind the UK’s Crime and Courts Act (2
 013) and the US Department of Justice’s policy: corporate fraud prosecut
 ions are slow and\, evidentially\, punishing and prosecuting a company c
 an do more economic damage than the offence itself.\n\nWhere should the 
 line fall between a technical default and a wilful economic offence? Doe
 s substituting monetary penalties for imprisonment simply make non-compl
 iance a cost of doing business for those who can afford to pay? One side
  will argue that an enforcement architecture already overburdened — the 
 Serious Fraud Investigations Office\, the Securities and Exchange Board 
 of India\, the Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Lau
 ndering Act would recover state losses faster under a judicially supervi
 sed DPA regime. The other will argue that prosecutorial discretion is co
 ntested enough in white-collar enforcement\, that judicial capacity to s
 crutinise negotiated settlements is unproven and that DPAs let large cor
 porates buy an accountability individuals cannot. Audience voting is to 
 be undertaken.\n
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