In 2014, India's economy was touted to be the fastest growing economy in the world. But, while the government was focused on a sustained growth of our economy, the Indian industry which contributes to 26% of the country's GDP seems to have been left on the wayside, unprotected, and marked for criminalization. Why?

The backlash of this vicious witch-hunt can be clearly seen since 2017 when India's economy has started to limp.

A nation is as strong as its industries and India would become a super power only by its home-grown industrial strength and never by allowing foreign dominance on its domestic industries.

Having been slaves for centuries, Indians have been habitual rule breakers and protesters and could never consider themselves as part of the establishment mainly due to the step-motherly treatment that continued to be meted out by the people in power even after independence who continued with the British legacy. The ntediluvian legal system and the plethora of laws were found impossible to be complied with by most people who were forced to violate some law on a daily basis for their survival.

With computerization, introduction of GST and Modi Govt's stress on clean governance, most of the law breakers who were forced to evade the law till now could henceforth do business in a clean and honest manner. But in the absence of any transition provision and unlimited powers in the hands of enforcement agencies found themselves caught in the whirlpool of never-ending investigations. A simple limitation period of, say, anywhere from 3 to 5 years for initiating any investigation under any law by any enforcement agency would have allowed most of such past forced offenders to become fully compliant honest citizens of India instead of constantly living under fear and perpetuating the wrongs done by them earlier.

The current environment of witch hunting in the country where every citizen is treated a bigger criminal as compared to dacoity and murder and the entire nation is found baying for his blood has done some serious harm in the eco system where a large part of the educated upper middle class has decided to migrate out of the country.

As against our dream of a free India where every citizen could hold his head high, we find ourselves today under a constant fear of Enforcement agency officials who can pick any individual or group of individuals at their whims and harass and torture without assigning any reason and without any accountability. All they need is to frame some flimsy charges against the individual and rest of the needful is done by masala story hungry 24 hour news channels to hang the individual even before he could understand the charges slapped on him. Somebody very rightly said that in India we don't have RULE OF LAW but RULE OF MEN.

Most affected in the current environment is the middle class who are looking at large scale job losses due to continued industrial slowdown as well as forced liquidation of even otherwise viable and operating companies due to inconsistencies in the newly introduced IB Code.

The bankruptcy law reforms committee (BLRC) envisioned the IBC as "a collective mechanism for resolving insolvency within a framework of equity and fairness to all stakeholders to preserve economic value in the process".

Of all the amendments in IB Code, the one which has become a riddle for all is section 29A. The section specifies persons not eligible to be resolution applicant,

The IB Code was designed to find the best possible way out for an ailing entity- it was meant to be more inclusive in approach and there was definitely no intention to avoid promoters from submitting resolution plans. However, the effect of Section 29A is exactly opposite to the preamble to the IB Code as set by The BLRC.

This also had the unintended, and unfortunate consequence of painting the genuine promoter and entrepreneur with the same brush as a fraud, and/or a wilful defaulter. Equating, and further penalizing a genuine entrepreneur whose industry has been hit by external factors for reasons beyond his control, and putting him on the stand along with frauds and wilful defaulters is akin to punishing an already harassed farmer for drought. The line between a regular business caught in the fluctuating global and domestic economic cycles, and a fraud, and/or a willful defaulter needs to be redrawn.

However, to ensure that the defaulting promoters who have
been a failure do not get back their Companies for a song, a
premium of say, 20% could be applied over the highest 3 rd party bid for comparison with the promoters' bid. This would ensure that the promoters pay substantially higher amount than anybody else is willing to pay and would also lead to much higher recovery for the lenders. This would also reduce litigation in a large number of cases and lead to much faster and quicker resolution as compared to the present scenario of long drawn uncertainty.

Limited liability to unlimited sorrow: Any proposal to change the law in a manner that would punish the promoter for business failure which are at times beyond his control for various external factors is against the principle of natural justice. It would kill the entrepreneurship in the country as people would shy away from setting an industry. The most affected would be the individual entrepreneur, where the promoters are forced to provide personal guarantee and this move would kill such business and discourage new entrepreneurs to take the risk. We would be going back in time where foreign businesses and big corporates will be owning everything making entire country slaves or employees for themselves.

There is need for an urgent intervention by the Government before the Indian entrepreneurial spirit meets an untimely death and invaded by foreign powers.