India's Move Against Fugitive Economic Offenders At G20 Meet

Indian fugitives would have tough time in fighting their extradition cases if India manages to get G20 leaders to establish a common platform wherein rules would be formulated on locating properties of economic offenders who have a tax debt in the country of their residence for its recovery.

"Common platform should be set up for sharing experiences and best practices including successful cases of extradition, gaps in existing systems of extradition and legal assistance, etc and we hope G20 Forum would initiate work on this," said a senior functionary in the government.

According to the official, India is pushing for a nine point agenda to G20 for action against fugitives of economic offences and asset recovery.

"Joint effort by G20 countries to form a mechanism would ensure that entry and safe havens to all fugitive economic offenders would be denied at all aspects," he further said.

As per government data, the Enforcement Directorate, which investigates financial crimes, has filed applications under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 (FEOA), against 19 persons.

Out of which 10 persons - Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara, Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Hitesh Kumar Narendrabhai Patel, Junaid Iqbal Memon, Hajra Iqbal Memon, Asif Iqbal Memon and Ramachandran Vishwanathan - have been declared as Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEOs) by the courts.

Most of these offenders have taken refuge in countries which have been shielding them for last so many years and India has been fighting their extradition.

The joint mechanism push which India proposes would ensure that G20 countries would deny entry to all fugitive economic offenders.

For the G20 meet, India has also suggested that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog for money laundering and terror financing, should be called upon to assign priority and focus to establishing international co-operation that leads to timely and comprehensive exchange of information between the competent authorities and Financial Intelligence Units.

The FATF should be tasked to formulate a standard definition of fugitive economic offenders and it should also develop a set of commonly agreed and standardised procedures related to identification, extradition and judicial proceedings for dealing with the fugitive economic offenders to provide guidance and assistance to the G20 countries, subject to their domestic law, India told the G20 member nations.

Principles of United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNOTC), especially related to "International Cooperation" should be fully and effectively implemented, it said.