The Lok Sabha on Thursday took up for discussion a bill that provides for measures to deter fugitive economic offenders from evading the process of law in India by staying outside the jurisdiction of Indian Courts.
Initiating the discussion on the of Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2018, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) member N.K. Premchandran said he supported the provisions of the bill but the government should not have resorted to an ordinance.
He said the bill was introduced in the budget session of the Parliament and efforts should have been made to pass it in that session.
Premachandran had on Wednesday moved a statutory resolution that the House disapproves the Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance promulgated in April this year.
The Bill allows for a person to be declared as a fugitive economic offender (FEO) if an arrest warrant is issued against him for any specified offences involving over Rs 100 crore and he has left the country and refuses to return to face prosecution.
To declare a person an FEO, an application will be filed in a Special Court designated under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002.
The Court will issue notice to the individual alleged to be a fugitive economic offender.
The bill provides for confiscation of any FEO's property bought from the proceeds of crime as also his other assets, benami or otherwise.
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