April 07, 2002

SINHA FAVOURS MORE SPECIALISED TRIBUNALS TO DEAL WITH ECONOMIC OFFENCES

    Union Finance Minister, Shri Yashwant Sinha says, more and more specialised tribunals are needed to deal with economic offences. Speaking at a seminar on ‘Combating Terrorism and other Crimes through forfeiture of Property’ today, Shri Sinha said that the terrorist incidents of September 11, 2001 had brought into sharp focus the system that supports and funds terrorism. Without naming any country, he said that the States sponsoring and supporting terrorism need to be fought against by international community.

    The Finance Minister said that laws on secrecy of banking operations need to be re-examined to ensure that Banks do not become instrumental in financing these nefarious activities. He felt that economic offences are not regarded as seriously as other crimes in the society. Besides, meting out justice takes time. This, he observed, develops a feeling that one can get away with an economic offence. This can be checked by making laws to check economic crimes more stringent and denying the offenders benefits of their evil deeds.

    Shri Sinha said that so far maximum emphasis had been on safeguarding the personal liberty of citizens including those involved in economic crimes. We need to examine if this golden rule of democracy was still relevant in the era of increasing economic crimes, he said.

    The Union Minister for Law, Justice & Company Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley in his address said that law should be based on the principles ‘No person has a right to the profits of crime money, until funding of terrorism and other economic crimes and rights to profits / enjoyment of ill gotten money was checked, these activities cannot be effectively contained, he added.

    Mr. Jaitley emphasied that it is imperative to track down the proceeds of ill gotten money, freeze it and ultimately to forfeit it. He felt that law needed to have provisions of a) treating funding of terrorism in any form as terrorism itself and b) forfeiture of properties acquired from proceeds of crime money. The Minister said that low conviction rate in India in case of heinous crimes (6.5%) against overall conviction rate of 39% reflected that personal liberty and accused right to silence need to be given a fresh look.

    In his welcome address, Shri Justice Eswara Prasad, Chairman Appellate Tribunal on Forfeited Property felt that provisions relating to forfeiture of property of terrorists and other criminals need to be further strengthened. The motive of crimes such as kidnapping for ransom, trade in narcotics and psychotropic substances, corruption in public service and smuggling etc. is to earn wealth. The seminar apart from considering forfeiture of property as an effective tool in combating terrorism and other crimes, would also explore the methods by which terrorism and other crimes can be contained.

    The seminar was organized as part of the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of the formation of Appellate Tribunals for Forfeited Property.