The Opposition spared no effort to embarrass the government with repeated references to fugitive businessmen Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi and also pointed out the legal loopholes in the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2018, before passing the legislation in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
“I challenge Finance Minister Piyush Goyal to bring back at least one offender by 2019, or else hang your head in shame,” Congress MP Rajeev Gowda said.
The Bill was cleared by the Lok Sabha last week. The Congress has been criticising a provision in the Bill that denies an offender the right to approach the court. “Economic offences don’t occur in vacuum. It’s a nexus between bankers, benamis and bureaucrats. The Bill is silent on this nexus,” he added. Speaking later at a press conference, Mr. Gowda pointed out the news reports on Mr. Choksi taking citizenship at Antigua, one of the safe havens for economic offenders. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to meet the Antigua Prime Minister recently. What is the link between two events [Choksi taking citizenship and Mr. Modi’s visit]? We have our suspicions” he said.
Opening the debate earlier, Congress MP Vivek Tankha said, the effort was too little too late. “Only 10% of black money is outside India. What has the government done to get back the money to India?” The Bill says that only offences involving ₹100 crore and above will be tried in the special court under the Act. “Why a threshold of ₹100 crore?,” he asked. “Are we not being strict enough on offenders who fall within the ₹100-crore limit?” Mr. Tankha asked.
Replying to the debate, Mr. Goyal addressed a few of the queries raised by the Opposition. He said the threshold of ₹100 crore was introduced to focus on speedy probe on large offenders. “This doesn’t mean smaller offenders will be let off. Large offences will be handled by special courts so that serious offenders will be handled effectively,” Mr. Goyal said.
Countering the accusation of legal loopholes in the law, Mr. Goyal said that if an offender comes back, he will face the regular trial.
Published - July 25, 2018 10:33 pm IST
