NEW DELHI: After a Bill to deal with the fugitive economic offenders stuck in Parliament due to daily ruckus, the government on Saturday took the Ordinance route to bring the deterrent law into force.

The Fugitive Economic Offenders’ Ordinance approved by the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Modi within hours of returning from a 5-day foreign tour also debars the offenders from pursuing any civil claims in the country. So as not to overburden the courts, only offences of not less than Rs 100 crore will fall within the purview of the Ordinance.

The ordinance is a ditto copy of a Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 12 to deal with economic offenders like diamond czar Nirav Modi who run away from the country to avoid criminal prosecution. It has a provision for a ‘Special Court’ under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 to declare a person as a Fugitive Economic Offender.

It defines a fugitive economic offender as a person who leaves the country or refuses to return to face prosecution and against whom an arrest warrant has been issued for committing any scheduled offence like counterfeiting government stamps or currency, cheque dishonour for insufficiency of funds, money laundering, and transactions defrauding creditors. A schedule of offences is listed in the ordinance for covering such culprits.

The Ordinance that comes into effect like an Act as soon as it gets the President’s assent lays down measures to seize proceeds of crimes and properties and assets of the economic offenders to deter them from evading the process of Indian law by remaining outside the jurisdiction of the Indian courts, an official press note said.

It said: “The Ordinance is expected to re-establish the rule of law with respect to the fugitive economic offenders as they would be forced to return to India to face trial for scheduled offences.” It said the ordinance would help the banks and other financial institutions to achieve higher recovery from financial defaults committed by such fugitive economic offenders, improving the financial health of such institutions.

According to the ordinance, a director or deputy director (appointed under the PMLA, 2002) may file an application before a special court (designated under the 2002 Act) to declare a person as a fugitive economic offender. The application will contain the reasons to believe that an individual is a fugitive economic offender.

Besides, the application will have information about his whereabouts, a list of properties believed to be proceeds of a crime for which confiscation is sought, a list of benami properties or domestic and foreign properties for which confiscation is sought, and a list of persons having an interest in these properties.

Upon receiving the application, the special court will issue a notice to the individual, requiring him to appear at a specified place within six weeks. If the person appears at the specified place, the special court will terminate its proceedings.

Any property belonging to the fugitive economic offender may provisionally be attached without the prior permission of the special court, provided that an application is filed before the court within 30 days. Appeals against the orders of the special court will lie before the High Court.

The ordinance provides for the appointment of an administrator to manage and dispose of the confiscated property.

A government spokesman said the ordinance provides all necessary constitutional 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.

He said necessity of the law to deal with the fugitive economic offenders was felt since there have been instances of economic offenders fleeing the jurisdiction of the Indian courts, anticipating the commencement, or during the pendency, of criminal proceedings, with several deleterious consequences: first, it hampers investigation in criminal cases; second, it wastes precious time of courts of law, third, it undermines the rule of law in India.

The government had in the Budget announced that it was considering a law that would enable it to seize the property of such absconders, following which the Union Cabinet had on March 1, 2018 approved the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill 2018 for introduction in Parliament. It, however, remained stillborn after introduction in the Lok Sabha because of daily ruckus and adjournment without conducting the business.