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On Thursday, the Union Cabinet approved the Fugitive economic offenders Bill, 2018, in a objective to tighten noose around fugitives like Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya and henceforth prevent such incidents in future.
The bill introduced in September 2017 aims to provide an “effective, expeditious and constitutionally permissible deterrent to ensure that such actions are curbed”. The bill encompasses cases where the total value involved in the offences is Rs. 100 crore or more.
The bill defines “fugitive economic offender” as an individual who has either left India to avoid criminal prosecution or refuses to return to India to face criminal prosecution despite the fact thatan arrest warrant has been issued against him for a scheduled offence by an Indian Court.
The bill empowers “special courts” to declare any person as fugitive economic offender. These are those courts which are designated under Section 43(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering act, 2002. This court covers wide range of offence including non payment of deposits and etc.
Person who is declared as fugitive economic offender, all the property related to him will be confiscated and he will be also disentitled from defending any civil claim. However such offender returns to India before the declaration by the special court, proceedings under the proposed law would cease.
All necessary safeguards in terms of providing hearing to the person through counsel, allowing him time to file a reply, serving notice of summons to him, whether in India or abroad and appeal to the high court has been given. The purpose is to maintain fair trial of natural justice.
The absence of such offenders from Indian Courts have several consequences in which firstly, it hampers investigation in criminal cases and secondly it wastes the precious time of the court, thirdly it undermines the rule of law in India. Most of the cases of such economic offenders are related to non payment of bank loans thereby worsening the financial health of the banking sector in India.
The existing civil and criminal law prevailing in India are not sufficient to deal with the severity of the problem. It is therefore felt necessary to provide for an effective bill which could curb such evils from the grass root level of the Indian Economy.
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