Painting a horror picture of the post-bill situation, industrialists feared the passage of the bill would lead to increased corruption and extortion by those responsible for enforcing law.

They pointed out that the politicians had as much to fear from the proposals sought to be put in place as a common man. Most industrialists felt that the purview of the bill should be restricted to offences under Prevention of Corruption Act, Arms Act, Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

This, they say, is necessary to draw a line betweeen criminal offence and economic offence.

Sudhir Jalan, Bells Controls chairman and managing director, described the Bill as "one step forward and three step backwards". Similarly, Vikram Thapar, Ballarpur Industries joint managing director, referred tothe bill as "babudom at work". Thapar felt that the bill was "extremely regressive and repressive".

Concurs Rajan Nanda, Escorts chairman: "Law should not terrorise commerce. An economic law offender should not be punished like a criminal". Conceding that money laundering in the economy has to be checked, Ajay S Shriram, managing director, DCM Shriram Consolidated said: "An environment should not be created where such an act can be used as a stick to be used against a suspect."

Subodh Bhargava, Eicher chairman, felt "there should be a fair and prompt assessment of the law when breached under the Act". Almost all industrialists contacted resented the manner in which guilt is proposed to be fixed on a person under the bill.

Said Bhargava, the powers and role of the investigative agencies should be spelt out so that there is no misuse of the provisions by the law enforcement officers. The agencies should not be without commensurate accountability. "A counter check on the agency has to be in placeotherwise it leaves room for harassment," he said.

Added Nanda: "The Indian legal system lacks enforcement and leads to harassment and misuse." Thapar and Jalan too concurred that the provisions of the bill are open to misuse by the law enforcement agencies.

Arun Bharatram, SRF vice chairman and senior managing director, said: "Instead of clubbing together parts of different laws, the Companies Act could have been amended and modified to accomodate various provisions that the new law seeks to address."

Others like Binay Kumar, chairman and managing director of Benaras Beads held the view that the most provisions included in the bill are already part of various statutes and could have been dealt with by civil court and Income Tax act.

He said since the CBI and other intelligence agencies have been empowered to initiate penal action, "there was no need to have a separate bill."

Sanjay Dalmia, chairman, Dalmia Industries Ltd: "And if everything had to be put into one, then where was the need to haveFema also? If the basic idea was to make things simpler, it will be defeated as problems are bound to arise."