Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018

• According to the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, a fugitive economic offender is an individual who has committed specified economic offences involving an amount of Rs 100 crore or more and has absconded from India or refused to come back to India to avoid criminal prosecution.
• The Act is basically aimed at acting as a deterrent for those who commit economic offences and flee, thereby, defying the Rule of Law in India and evading jurisdiction of Indian justice system.
• Under the Act, upon declaration as FEO, the properties and assets may be confiscated and vested by the Centre. This includes not just the properties directly owned by the FEO and affiliated organisations but also any and all benami properties owned by the offender.
• Courts and tribunals across the country have the power to disentitle anyone declared as a FEO from filing or defending any civil case – even if that case has nothing to do with their alleged economic offence.

Why in News?

• A Special Court has permitted the Enforcement Directorate to confiscate properties of diamond merchant Nirav Modi within a month.
• Mr. Modi was declared a fugitive economic offender in 2019 that enabled the ED to move the court for confiscation of his properties in India, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates.
• This is for the first time an agency will be able to confiscate the property of an economic offender since the FEO Act, 2018 came into force.

About ED

• Enforcement Directorate (ED) is a specialized financial investigation agency under the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, which enforces the following laws: –
  • Foreign Exchange Management Act,1999 (FEMA) – A Civil Law, with officers empowered to conduct investigations into suspected contraventions of the Foreign Exchange Laws and Regulations, adjudicate, contraventions, and impose penalties on those adjudged to have contravened the law.
  • Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) – A Criminal Law, with the officers empowered to conduct investigations to trace assets derived out of the proceeds of crime, to provisionally attach/ confiscate the same, and to arrest and prosecute the offenders found to be involved in Money Laundering.

• ED was established in 1956 with its headquarters at New Delhi.