Economic Offenders: Recovery from criminals who fled the country by defrauding government banks has increased. According to the information given by the Ministry of Finance, more than 15 thousand crore rupees have been recovered so far from fugitives like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi. Although it is still much less than the total sunken amount of public sector banks.
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chowdhary informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday about the recovery figures made so far from fugitive economic offenders. He said that in 19 cases involving fugitive economic offenders like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, assets worth more than Rs 15,000 crore have been seized so far and returned to public sector banks.
Total recoveries so far
However, if we compare the amount recovered so far with the total sunken amount of the banks, it sits around one-third. In the 19 cases in which recovery has taken place, more than Rs 40,000 crore of public sector banks have been lost, while the recovery in those cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act is Rs 15,113.02 crore. Apart from this, properties worth Rs 873.75 crore have been seized under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.
These are 10 declared fugitive criminals
As of now, the ED has applied against 19 people under the Economic Offenders Act, 2018. 10 of them Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara, Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Hitesh Kumar Narendrabhai Petal (Hitesh Kumar Narendrabhai Patel), Junaid Iqbal Memon, Hajra Iqbal Memon, Asif Iqbal Memon and Ramachandran Vishwanathan have been declared absconders from the court. .
Total outstanding on willful defaulters
If we talk about willful defaulters, that is, those who deliberately do not repay the loans of the banks, Nirav Modi’s uncle Mehul Choksi’s company is on Gitanjali James Topper. The outstanding of banks against this company is Rs 8,738 crore. According to the data till March 31, 2023, the total outstanding of banks above the top-50 willful defaulters is Rs 87,295 crore.