The Fugitive Economic Offender’s Bill – 2018 is first time Judicialized on Vijay Mallaya

Mallya is declared a fugitive and his properties be confiscated and brought under the
control of the Union government as per the provisions of the new FEO Act

• A special court in Mumbai declared absconding Vijay Mallya a fugitive economic offender (FEO) on a plea of the Enforcement Directorate. So, he becomes the first person to be declared a fugitive offender under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.
• The decision was pronounced by a special PMLA court in Mumbai, which ruled in favor of an application moved by the Enforcement Directorate. It will allow the investigative agency to seize all his properties under the new law.
• The Enforcement Directorate(ED) had requested the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court that Mallya, who is currently in the UK, be declared a fugitive and his properties be confiscated and brought under the control of the Union government as per the provisions of the new FEO Act.
•  Special judge MS Azmi declared Mallya an Fugitive Economic Offendor under Section 12 of the Act from the points Mallya accused of defaulting on loan repayments and money laundering, had left India in March 2016. The ED had also sought immediate confiscation of about Rs 12,500 crore worth of assets including separate
  cases of tax evasion.
• Earlier Mallya offered to pay back the lenders after his extradition by UK court in September, 2018, the Enforcement Directorate reported that that probe agencies were not willing to accept Vijay Mallya’s offer to pay lenders.
•  A fugitive economic offender is any individual against who warrants for arrest is issued for his involvement in select economic offences involving amount of at least Rs. 100 crore or more and has left India so as to avoid criminal prosecution.

Highlights of Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2018

•  The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India, on 12 March 2018.
• It seeks to confiscate properties and assets of economic offenders that evade prosecution by remaining outside the jurisdiction of Indian courts.
• Economic offences with a value of more than Rs 100 crores, which are listed in the schedule of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, come under the purview of this law.
• As per the Bill, a court or a ‘Special Court’ under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 has to declare a person as a Fugitive Economic Offender.

Powers fetched for the Government

• The law gives the government power to attach all the assets of a person who’s been declared a fugitive and not just those acquired from the proceeds of criminal activity. This will also include benami assets.
• The government will also establish an international cooperative mechanism later to attach even the foreign assets of those declared fugitives.