The government's financial fraud investigation agency, SFIO (Serious Fraud Investigation Office), will get greater powers to act as a strong deterrent for wrongdoings by corporates, rather than doing firefighting after investors being duped of their money, Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot said.
At the same time, SFIO will be entrusted with probes into major cases only that are either of large-scale wrongdoings or are of public interest, Pilot said in an interview here.
"If SFIO goes after all the small allegations, it will lose the novelty and it will not be able to do justice to all the work it is asked to do with its limited manpower," the minister said.
SFIO is a multi-disciplinary organisation under the corporate affairs ministry and is mandated to investigate white-collar crimes and frauds in the country. The minister said SFIO needs more people and they do not have sufficient manpower. "I have already written to some ministries to give some people for SFIO. It needs a pool of people with different backgrounds and with experience in areas like investigation, regulation, taxation, accountancy, forensic auditing, capital markets and information technology," he said.
Pilot said the new Companies Bill will provide statutory powers to SFIO, which would help strengthen its investigation and other capabilities, which should lead to it becoming a stronger deterrent for fraudsters.
"SFIO will have more powers and they should act as a deterrent. But, it will be the surety of the punishment, more than the severity, which needs to be ensured for this," said the 35-year old Pilot, who took charge of the corporate affairs ministry in October.
