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Serious Fraud Office soon to look into scams

The government will soon bring a Bill before Parliament to deal with serious commercial fraud offences and an office would be set up to handle such economic crimes, a top government official said on Monday.

"A Cabinet note has been circulated among various ministries including law, finance and personnel. The Cabinet will shortly take up this issue," Department of Company Affairs secretary V K Dhall said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in New Delhi.

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had said in Parliament that the tendency to seek a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into every major commercial crime would not be helpful. So, DCA was taking steps to deal with serious frauds and would soon come with a legislation for which it was now consulting the law ministry.

Dhall said the Serious Fraud Office ould be selective and look into scams and other grave financial offences.

The office would have a core group of officials represented from various ministries, Dhall said.

"Today, we are inspecting about 200-250 companies a year. We want to be more selective but whichever case we are investigating, it will be a thorough one," he said.

"We are moving towards a tighter regulatory regime where penalty limits will be increased and rationalised," he said.

The government was also considering liberalisation of company laws for small private companies and would focus on public limited companies, the DCA secretary said.

Registrar of Companies was also being modernised so that corporates can file return online, Dhall said.

The government has also initiated amendments in the Companies Act in tune with the pace of reforms.

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