Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has called for an urgent need to expedite the review and amendment of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 to deal with economic offences in today’s post liberalized era.
Speaking during the 28th Intelligence Bureau centenary endowment lecture 2015 in New Delhi, Mr Jaitley said the Act in its present form has failed to make distinction between corrupt and erroneous decisions.
He said, white collar crime and rise in economy related offences are the greatest challenges for the country and they can only be dealt with an appropriate responses from the government. Mr Jaitley said as the economy is transformed form the license raj to liberalized era the nature of economy offences have changed. He said the world economy has integrated and technology is the great facilitator for such crimes.
The Finance Minister added that as offences like bank fraud, money laundering and tax evasion have spread the investigative agencies have to continuously upgrade their skills to be ahead of the perpetrator of these crimes.
Mr Jaitley said, it was necessary to preserve the strength of Indian economy as well as to ensure high degree of moral propriety in financial matter in public life.