In a bid to bring prevention of money laundering legislation on par with global norms, Government today introduced a Bill to allow confiscation of proceeds of crime even during the trial.

PMLA (Amendment) Bill, 2011, introduced by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Lok Sabha, also provides that in any proceedings relating to proceeds of crime "...it shall be presumed that such proceeds of crime is involved in money-laundering".

The proposed Bill has provision for attachment and confiscation of the proceeds of crime even before conviction, "so long as it is proved that offence of money-laundering has taken place and property in question is involved in money-laundering."

The amendment was necessiated in view of India being an important member of Financial Action Task Force and also chairing its Asia Pacific group. Therefore, it was important to make the existing PMLA in tune with the practice being followed world over.

It proposes to introduce the concept of corresponding law to link the provisions of Indian law with the laws of foreign countries and "provide for transfer of the proceeds of the foreign predicate offence in any manner in India."

The Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 was enacted to prevent money laundering and to provide for confiscation of property derived from, or involved in, money laundering.

The Act was amended in the year 2005 and 2009 to remove the difficulties arisen in implementation of the Act.

Further the amendment bill seeks to use "proceeds of crime as criminal activities and remove existing limit of five lakh rupees of fine under the Act".

The government said that the problem of money-laundering is no longer restricted to the geo-political boundaries.

"It is a global menace that cannot be contained by any nation alone," the bill introduced in the lower House said.

The Amendment Bill also seeks to enlarge the definition of offence under money-laundering by including the activities like concealment, acquisition, possession and use of proceeds of crime as criminal activities.

The Bill has introduced the concept of 'reporting entity' that would include banks, financial institution and intermediaries and others.

It also proposed to make the reporting entity, its designated directors on the Board and employees responsible for omissions or commissions in relation to the reporting obligations.

Reporting entity needs to maintain a record of all transactions, including information relating to transactions to enable it to reconstruct individual transactions, the Bill said.

Such entities should maintain record of documents evidencing identity of its clients and beneficial owners as well as account files and business correspondence relating to its clients, it said.

Every information maintained, furnished or verified shall be kept confidential, it added.

The Bill also confers powers upon the Director of reporting entities to call for records of transactions or any additional information that may be required for preventing money-laundering and also to make inquiries for non-compliance of reporting obligations cast upon them.