New Delhi: The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2018, aimed at preventing culprits from evading the legal process and fleeing the country. was on Thursday passed by the Lok Sabha, even as the Opposition questioned the government’s sincerity in taking any action against them.
The House passed the legislation by a voice vote as finance minister Piyush Goyal said that the government had brought an ordinance before introducing the bill in Parliament which reflected its “aggressiveness” in acting against black money and such offenders. The bill will replace the ordinance promulgated by the government in April this year and will now be taken up in the Rajya Sabha.
Mr Goyal also asked why the UPA government had not brought a legislation like this. He said the bill gives power to the agencies to seize properties which are not only in the name of offender, but also the ones that are ‘benami’.
The bill allows for a person to be declared as a fugitive economic offender (FEO) if an arrest warrant has been issued against him for any specified offences where the value involved is over Rs 100 crores and he has left the country and refuses to return to face prosecution. The proposed legislation also provides for confiscation of property upon a person being declared an FEO. The bill is expected to re-establish the rule of law as the accused will be forced to return to India and face trial for his offences. This would also help banks achieve higher recovery from financial defaults committed by fugitive economic offenders, improving the financial health of such institutions. Earlier, Mr Goyal rejected the Opposition’s demand to bring the bill with retrospective effect to book offenders who have already fled.
During the almost two-hour long debate on the bill, the Opposition questioned the government’s sincerity in acting against economic offenders saying many of them have fled the country during its rule, even as the BJP maintained that the banks were being helped to recover their money.
The attack was launched by RSP member N.K. Premchandran, followed by several other Opposition MPs, who charged the government with letting the accused like llya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi flee the country.
Demanding a JPC probe into these incidents to bring out the truth, Mr Premachandran also said the bill should be sent to the standing committee for evaluation, while maintaining that he was opposed to bringing the ordinance.
While stringent action must be taken against economic offenders, the government should examine whether such a law would be legally sustainable as everybody has a right to justice and is presumed to be not guilty till proven guilty, the RSP member said.
Initiating the debate on the bill, Nishikant Dubey of the BJP strongly supported the measure saying it will allow banks to recover its dues from the absconding offenders. He claimed that absconding accused like Mr Modi, Mr Choksi were “products of the Congress government”, which had also “facilitated” their scams.
Mr Goyal alleged that then finance minister P. Chidambaram had “tweaked rules” to help certain firms linked to some of these accused days before the BJP government took over in 2014.
He said Rs 9.93 lakh crore of the Rs 10 lakh crore of non- performing assets (NPAs) had originated during the UPA era, adding that countries like the UK, US and China amended their laws to deal with such offences, but the UPA government never did it.
Shashi Tharoor of the Congress said there was a significant gap between the Government’s “rhetoric and action” and took a dig, saying that Nirav Modi was photographed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Davos.
The Prime Minister had promised to be a “chowkidar”, he said, referring to a number of economic offenders fleeing the country. He said it was “laughable” if the government thinks that selling the properties of an economic offender will bring him back.
T.G. Venkatesh Babu of the AIADMK said that the intent of the bill was doubtful and dubbed it as “toothless”.
Kalyan Banerjee the TMC said that the bill was discriminatory as it applied only in cases of economic offences of total value involving Rs 100 crore or more and not on economic offences of value less than Rs 100 crore.
Supriya Sule of the NCP raised the issue of rights of workers of companies promoted by economic fugitives like Mr Modi. Dushyant Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal and Kaulshendra Kumar Of the JD-U supported the bill, but questioned why was the new legislation capping the amount to Rs 100 crore.
