The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance, 2018. The bill will replace an ordinance promulgated by the government in April to allow the seizure of domestic assets of those whom a court rules to be fugitive economic offenders.
The bill proposes the formation of a special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, to declare a person a fugitive economic offender. Courts or tribunals can also bar such offenders or their associated companies from filing or defending civil claims before it.
Finance Minister Piyush Goyal introduced the bill in the Upper House on Wednesday, after Lok Sabha cleared it on July 19. Goyal said the purpose of the bill was to bring back fugitive economic offenders and stop them from fleeing the country. He added that the existing criminal laws are inadequate in dealing with such offenders.
“What is agitating the common man in the country is whether the system is so helpless,” Rajya Sabha Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu asked as soon as Goyal introduced the bill. He said people wanted to know if it will be possible to confiscate the property of the accused, bring them back to India and prosecute them. Naidu said legal experts should offer their views on this matter.
“The question people are asking is unless there is a treaty with different countries, how will it [accused fleeing the country] be checked,” he added.
Congress MP Vivek K Tankha claimed that there was “no shortage of laws in India”. “Are we a country that make too many laws with little implementation?” he asked.
The MP claimed that only 10% of black money was outside the country. “Why is the government pitching for a threshold of offences worth Rs 100 crore for bringing economic offenders under the purview of the legislation?” he asked. “Even an offender of Rs 10 crore is bad.”
While moving the bill, Goyal said that the criminal law does not allow the enforcement agencies to impound the property of defaulters. “This bill is an effective, expeditious and constitutional way to stop these offenders from running away.”
The ordinance had come weeks after billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi fled the country in January, after allegedly defrauding the Punjab National Bank of over Rs 13,000 crore. Liquor baron Vijay Mallya has fled to the United Kingdom after allegedly cheating banks of Rs 9,000 crore.
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