This article has been authored by Niharika Shaiyam. Niharika Shaiyam is a third-year law student at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. Her research interests lie on researching and studying about intellectual property, criminal law, and socio-legal issues, with a particular focus on analysing policy reforms.
LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTION AND ENFORCEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS IN INDIA
A Geographical Indication (GI) is a sign that is used on products to indicate that they originate from a particular location and have attributes, characteristics, or reputations associated with that location. From the standpoint of a developing country like India, the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (hereinafter referred as ‘the act’) provides a thorough definition of Geographical Indication (GI) that expands the protection to include handicrafts, manufactured, and natural goods like Banarsi sarees, Kolhapuri chappals, and Chanderi silk, in addition to agricultural products like Basmati rice and Darjeeling tea.[1]
Although the 1999 act has offered a strong framework for registration and protection over time, its enforcement procedures have frequently come under fire for being unduly harsh and procedurally complex. Recognising the need to balance effective protection with each of compliance, the Government introduced a series of legislative reforms aimed at modernising the enforcement landscape. One of the most significant among these is the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023, which directly impacts the way GI rights are enforced in India.
IMPACT OF THE JAN WISHWAS (AMENDMENT OF PROVISIONS) ACT, 2023 ON GI ENFORCEMENT
i. Shift from Criminal to Administrative Framework
A major step toward modernizing and streamlining the enforcement of several Indian laws, including the GI Act, is the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023. This Act’s main goal is to modify some laws that decriminalize crimes to further advance trust-based governance and facilitate business dealings. Another objective is to solve the issue of overcriminalisation. The problem of overcriminalisation occurs when lawmakers impose strict-liability offenses without requiring mens rea, and indiscriminately broaden criminal liability to include behaviour that is not intrinsically wrong, and impose disproportionate penalties. This results in the incarceration of people for actions that could be better controlled by civil or administrative sanctions, this weakens the moral force of criminal law, and burdens the legal system.[2]
The GI Act, 1999 offered both civil and criminal remedies for infringement prior to the Jan Vishwas Act. Criminal remedies were considered to be especially effective because they could be swiftly resolved and were seen to directly attack an infringer’s honour and social status, which could result in out-of-court settlements. The Jan Vishwas Act, however, modifies the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 by substituting administrative penalties for criminal ones. This is in line with the broader objective of the Act, which replaces imprisonment with monetary penalties in several enactments, ensuring that punishment remains proportionate while reducing the risk of unjust criminalisation for minor regulatory lapses.
ii. Concerns Over Weakening Deterrence and Enforcement
Scholars such as MacLeod, argue that punishment is only just and humane when it is based on retaliationi.e. when it is used to punish public wrongs that are the result of a vicious will. The law treats people as tools of state control rather than as responsible moral agents when criminal penalties are imposed for economic or regulatory offenses without culpable intent. This results in overcriminalization and undermines the presumption of innocence. The Jan Vishwas Act reverses this overuse of criminal law and aligns punishment with actual culpability by decriminalizing minor GI offenses (such as mislabelling and regulatory lapses) and moving them into the administrative penalty framework.
However, there are worries about a possible weakening of deterrence against deliberate and widespread violations due to the decriminalization of some GI-related offenses, especially the removal of explicit penal provisions for serious acts like falsifying GI entries. For instance, the Act leaves out sections 43 and 44 of the GI Act, 1999, which dealt with serious offenses like falsifying entries in the GI Registry and misrepresenting a place of business as connected to the GI Registry. It is often argued that criminal penalties possess a greater retributive impact. The perception of justice and accountability for victims (like GI holders or small-scale producers) declines when offenses, particularly those involving intentional deception or falsification, are transferred from the criminal domain to administrative penalties.
The continuation of machine-based cheap product imitations and Chinese imitation saris in the market, as observed in the Banarasi sari case, despite GI registration, highlights existing difficulties in protecting these communities. In the past, criminal procedures were prized for their capacity to directly assault the honor and social standing of an infringer a deterrent effect that administrative penalties might not be able to fully replicate.
Additionally, even though many offenses no longer carry direct criminal penalties, the Act specifies that noncompliance with an administrative order (such as failing to pay an imposed penalty) within ninety days may still result in a fine of one lakh rupees, up to a year in jail, or both. Even though government penalties are supposed to make things easier, they only work if the person being penalized cooperates. If they ignore the order, the small producer is right back where they started, having to take further legal action to force them to comply, which can be a costly and time-consuming process.
iii. Cultural and Moral Dimensions of GI Protection
Overcriminalisationoften produces punishments that are grossly disproportionate to the wrong committed, undermining the rule of law and eroding public faith in justice. The Jan Vishwas Act addresses this issue by recalibrating punishment through a system of graded monetary fines, ensuring that sanctions are proportional: wrongful actions are penalized without the unnecessary deprivation of individual liberty for minor or technical offenses.
It is important to note that even prior to the implementation of these criminal provisions, enforcement was hindered by a lack of willingness among Geographical Indication (GI) holders to take action against infringers. If certain actions, such as falsifying GI registrations, are broadly regarded as morally reprehensible, then substituting criminal sanctions with civil or administrative measures may be perceived as trivializing or undermining the seriousness of the conduct. Conversely, if the redefined prohibited actions are not widely considered morally objectionable, the enforcement of criminal penalties may be inadequate. On the other hand, if a behavior is deemed morally blameworthy, the elimination of criminal penalties could weaken the societal message regarding the seriousness of such actions.
GI infringements, particularly falsification or counterfeiting, clearly cause both economic harm to small producers and cultural harm to entire communities. In reducing such acts to administrative penalties, the Jan Vishwas Act runs a real risk of undermining the recognition of this harm, sending a message that such violations are bureaucratic rather than fraudulent in nature. This shift may therefore weaken deterrence and the expressive condemnation that criminal law historically carried.
It is important to understand that Geographical Indication is not a brand but a collective asset, which is a part of culture and history that a community belongs to.
CONCLUSION
GI infringements are not just technical infractions, but strike at the very cultural identity and economic survival of entire communities-which is an ethical dimension of it. For serious infringements, scrapping away penal provisions will risk diluting the moral and cultural weight of GI violations. Therefore, a more balanced approach would be to retain criminal penalties for deliberate, large-scale falsification and counterfeiting, while converting minor or first-time regulatory lapses into administrative penalties. For example, a modification can be done by the legislature by introducing a graded penalty system imposing monetary fines for first-time or small-scale offences and reserving imprisonment for repeated or large-scale fraudulent conduct. This kind of model would avoid overcriminalisation and preserve the collective cultural heritage that GI carries.
[1] Suresh C Srivastava, “Geographical Indications and Legal Framework in India” (2024) 38 Economic and Political Weekly 4022.
[2] Ibid.
