LS passes fugitive eco offenders Bill as Opposition attacks Govt

New Delhi: The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill aimed at preventing culprits from evading the legal process and fleeing the country was on Thursday passed by the Lok Sabha, as the opposition questioned the goverment's sincerity in taking any action against them.

The House later passed the legislation by a voice vote as Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said the government had brought an ordinance before introducing the bill in Parliament which reflected its "aggressiveness" in acting against black money and such offenders.

Goyal also asked why the UPA government had not brought a legislation like this.

He said the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill 2013 gave power to the agencies to seize properties which are not only in the name of offender, but also the ones that are 'benami'.

To opposition demand to bring the bill with retrospective effect to book offenders who have already fled, Goyal said it was not possible as the legislation was and the government "knows how to bring the accused to book".

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 Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi to flee the country under its rule.

Demanding a JPC probe into these incidents to bring out the truth, 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 (BJP) strongly supported the measure saying it will allow the government to recover its dues from the absconding offenders.

He claimed that absconding accused like Mallya, Modi, Choksi were "products of the Congress government", which had also "facilitated" their scams.

He alleged that then finance minister P C Chidambaram had "tweaked rules" to help certain firms linked to some of these accused days before the BJP government took over in 2014.

Rs 9.93 lakh crore of the Rs 10 lakh crore of non- performing assets (NPAs) had

originated during the UPA

era, he said, 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 (Cong) 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.