Cabinet clears deletion of Clause 63

the changes in the money laundering bill, 1999, approved by the union cabinet go beyond redefining money laundering and enhancing the threshold for transactions to be monitored by the banks. based on the recommendations of the standing committee on finance, the cabinet has also cleared the deletion of clause 63 and amendments to clause 64 of the money laundering bill, 1999. the amendment concerning clause 64 deals with sanction of the government for prosecution within a time limit and cognisance of the offence. as per the clause 63 of the original bill, if the sanction of the central government is not received within 90 days than the sanction shall be deemed to have been given. however, the decision now is that clause 63 in the original bill be deleted and the deemed sanction provision may not be accepted. the reasoning is that no such deemed sanction limit exists in any other law and besides such a legislation could lead to administrative inaction, sources said. experts say the effect of these changes go beyond bringing only those who knowingly laundered money under the provisions of the proposed money laundering bill. clause 63 in the money laundering bill 1999 provides for prior central government permission for proceeding against officials who have caused vexatious detention, searches or arrests of any person without reasonable grounds of suspicion. interestingly, these provisions do not apply to the enforcement agencies who may be proceeding against the executive, such as the cbi proceeding against a bureaucrat, but they apply to the courts. this means that had the parliamentary committee permitted the retention of this section in law, the central government would have powers to even stop the courts from proceeding against its staff which had abused the provisions of the proposed money laundering law. experts say that in that sense, the parliamentary committee has done the public a service. abuse of fera to harass industry was common enough before it came to be replaced with fema. considering that clause 63 has found its way into the statutes in another proposed law only reflects the intent of the government to retain the draconian provisions of fera in some form or the other, say experts. the amendments to clause 64 are similar in vein, except that they raise the fundamental issue of whether money laundering is a criminal or a civil offence. industry would like it to be a civil offence. the law enforcers would like it to be a criminal offence. the existing section 64 in the bill provides for the application of code of criminal procedure 1973, with respect to arrests, searches, seizures, attachment, confiscation, investigation and prosecution of money laundering offences. this intrinsically means that irrespective of who is arrested, the enforcement agencies would be within right to treat the person like a common criminal, when he is suspected of money laundering. the industry obviously would not like this provision to remain in the status, considering that similar provisions in fera have been abused in the past by the government to settle scores. the enforcers would evidently prefer that instead of expecting them to deliver results with hands tied under all circumstances, the law should be such that the guilty amongst them should be severely punished.

Cabinet clears deletion of Clause 63

THE changes in the Money Laundering Bill, 1999, approved by the Union Cabinet go beyond redefining money laundering and enhancing the threshold for transactions to be monitored by the banks. Based on the recommendations of the Standing Committee o...

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