NEW DELHI, Dec 25: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today pitched for expeditious amendment to the Prevention of Corruption Act to bring it in sync with the modern economy.
Mr Jaitley said the present law fails to distinguish between corrupt and erroneous decisions. A bill to amend the pre-liberalisation law was introduced in Rajya Sabha in the just-concluded winter session.
“Keeping erroneous decision within the preview of this Act dissuades civil servants from taking correct and bold decisions in the interest of the economy,” Mr Jaitley said while delivering the Annual Lecture of the Intelligence Bureau here.
“Defence purchases, commercial decision-making, disinvestment and privatisation are examples of decisions which have suffered on this count.There is, thus an urgent need to expedite review and amend the Prevention of Corruption Act to bring it in tune with the requirements of the liberalised economy,” he said.
He added that the amendments which have been introduced by the government are before Parliament and when “Parliament gets out of this dysfunctional phase, I hope they are taken up at some stage.”
The amendments have been mooted to lay down more stringent measures to tackle corruption while providing a shield of protection to the government employees after they have resigned or retired from the service.
The Finance Minister said the nature of offences has changed with the transformation of the economy from the ‘Licence Raj’ to a liberalised era.
He said the world economy has also got integrated today and technology is a great facilitator. “It also facilitates in economic crime. Money laundering, bank frauds, corruption, market manipulation, taxation frauds, are operations which are frequently seen in the liberalised era.” “The investigative agencies have to continuously upgrade their skills to be ahead of the perpetrators of these crimes,” Mr Jaitley added. (UNI)
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