On Wednesday Goyal wrote on Twitter stating the significance of the bill which seeks to lay down measures to empower Indian authorities to attach and confiscate proceeds associated with crime, scheduled economic offences & the properties of such fugitives who run away from the country. (Source: LSTV Grab via PTI)
The Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance, 2018 was passed by Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. After being cleared by Lok Sabha last week without any amendment, the ordinance was tabled in Rajya Sabha by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal. The minister said instances of people running away and evading legal legal process was increasing, which needed to be stopped as the current laws do not allow dealing with the “severity of the problem”.
“Criminal law does not allow us to impound their property,” he added.
“This bill is an effective, expeditious and constitutional way to stop these offenders from running away. Legislative changes or a new law must be in place to confiscate assets of such absconders till they don’t present themselves in front of the courts. We will also work out what has to be done with the confiscated assets,” Goyal said.
While replying to the debate, he said there cannot be a situation where economic offenders run away from the country and also protect their properties.
Justifying the financial limit of Rs 100 crore for invoking the provision of this new law, Goyal said it was being done to catch the big offenders and not to clog the courts. The Enforcement Directorate will be the investigative agency under the Act, he added.
The bill empower authorities to attach and confiscate properties and assets of economic offenders.
In April this year, the Union Cabinet led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had approved the Finance Ministry’s proposal of promulgating the Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance, 2018. After the recent financial frauds came to fore in India, especially the Rs 13,000 crore PNB scam where diamantaire Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi fled the country, it became apparent that the existing civil and criminal provisions are not entirely adequate to deal with the severity of the problem.
The absence of offenders during investigations poses problems for the probing agencies apart from undermining the law of the country.
(With PTI inputs)