Assets of defaulters to be confiscated?

February 3, 2017 Hot from the Oven Valli Sarvani No comments

The government seems to be planning a new move to prevent big names loan defaulters from escaping their debt.

With recent cases like that of liquor baron Vijay Mallya, the government wants to prevent loan defaulters from fleeing the country.

In order to make this happen, there might soon be a plan to form a law which allows confiscation of assets of such defaulters until they submit to the judiciary.

The law was hinted at by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley himself. When he was presenting the budget on Wednesday, he said there have been multiple instances of big names who offended the law with their defaulting.

These big shots have chosen the option of fleeing the country to escape law and the amount they need to pay he said.

Jaitley further told everyone that it is time to make sure the law will stop these people.

He said that law must be allowed to take its course hinting at new legislation.

He stated that the government is already planning changes in legislature or even a new law entirely.

This law will facilitate the confiscation of assets of such people in the country.

He said that the law will allow the government to confiscate assets until the person submits to the jurisdiction of the appropriate legal forum.

Before questions were raised about the safeguards, Jaitley announced that such a law will have all necessary constitutional safeguards when dealing with cases.

The case of Mallya is one of the biggest but not the only defaulter cases.

Due to Mallya owned Kingfisher Airlines going defunct, he owes various banks a total of more than ₹9,000 crores. Before the case could be solved, Mallya left India on March 2.

So far, the total attachment made by the agency in this is at ₹8,041 crore. In Indian financial history, this is one of the largest attachment of assets made by the ED in a PMLA case.

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