ECONOMIC OFFENDERSGOING SCOT FREE Elvidio Miranda It has been reported that the total amount of NPAs that the public sector banks (PSBs) for FY21 are incurring is a whopping Rs. 5.77 lakh crore (yes, that is Rs. 5.77 trillion!). Why is that economic offenders cannot be brought to book even though they have defaulted in paying back huge sums of money borrowed by them and they still have escaped the punctured dragnet of the legal system? Examples of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Lalit Modi (the conveniently forgotten BCCI president) are stark reminders of people in big businesses who have looted the banks and the country. Banks sanctioned them loans without attaching a proportionate amount of their assets so as to recover money which is now bleeding the banks of staggering amount of money. How many other big businessmen are going to escape the ambit of the law and are they being held accountable as well as the complicit bank top brass who are enablers in looting of money of the banks and the country? Recently a drug smuggler, Kishan Singh has been extradited from UK to India to face charges, while economic offenders have been stalling extradition by making use of their ill-gotten gains to postpone extradition by resorting to legal spin craft, by hiring expert economic offences defence lawyers, who manage to hold at bay their extradition using legal sleight of hand. Will the offenders be forgotten with time or will they face legal action when they reach their old age, only because they can outlast the legal system with their borrowed money? Can the country afford such huge sums of money from being lost by banks, which any way are in serious trouble, with reduced profitability? Like West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee said not so long ago, India is in the grip of an `economic emergency'.
