Shielding Innovators: Navigating Prosecution Challenges in India's Bureaucratic Landscape

The Economic Survey 2025-26 emphasizes the need to protect honest officials from undue prosecution to foster an entrepreneurial state. It highlights the requisite legal frameworks to differentiate good-faith errors from corruption, needed for effective decision-making under uncertainty. Institutional forgiveness is pivotal to encouraging innovation without promoting negligence.

The Economic Survey 2025-26 presented in Parliament calls for safeguarding honest officials from unjust prosecution to cultivate an entrepreneurial state, as articulated by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

It recommends establishing legal frameworks to distinguish genuine mistakes from corruption, crucial for informed decision-making amid uncertainty. The survey, championing institutional forgiveness, underscores the necessity of learning from errors without endorsing negligence.

This approach aims to empower Indian institutions to adapt and innovate by offering legal protection for good-faith decisions, thus maintaining a balance between vigilance and creativity in governance.

(With inputs from agencies.)