Bank frauds: Govt holds meeting with investigative agencies to draw plan to stop financial defaulters going abroad

New Delhi: In a bid to stop financial defaulters escaping from the country, officials of the Home and External Affairs Ministries held a high-level meeting with the investigating agencies officials to draw up a strategy for the purpose, informed sources said. According to the sources, the meeting, where officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) were also present, discussed strategies on how to stop financial defaulters slipling out of the country. The source also revealed that a detailed discussion was held on to chalk out the coordination among the MEA and the investigating agencies to track the movement of the absconding defaulters. [caption id=“attachment_4402913” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AP[/caption] The meeting comes against the backdrop of the diamond jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi of the Gitanjali Group, who are wanted in Rs 13,500 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud slipping away from the country a month ago before the case was registered by the CBI. On 4 June, members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance asked banks to come out with a roadmap to deal with non-performing assets (NPA) and suggested their redefining and classification of the bad loans. Sources said the members asked the banking sector representatives about the challenges they faced and changes they require to prevent frauds. SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar and Punjab National Bank Chairman Sunil Mehta were among those who attended the meeting. On NPAs, some Committee members said that there cannot be one category and there should be classification in terms of willful defaulters and non-willful defaulters. In April, in a bid to bring back defaulters of huge bank loans who escape to refuges abroad, the Union Cabinet had approved an ordinance that would provide for attachment and confiscation of the properties of the economic offenders. The decision to issue The Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance, 2018 was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sources said the Ordinance aims at deterring economic offenders from evading the process of Indian law by remaining outside the jurisdiction of Indian courts. With inputs from IANS