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A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was moved before the Delhi High Court on Tuesday seeking directions to the Centre and States to ensure the feasibility of confiscating all the black money, Benami property, and disproportionate assets, ANI reports.

Plea further sought direction to award life imprisonment in the offences of Black money, Benami property, money laundering, disproportionate assets, bribery, profiteering, hoarding, adulteration, black marketing, human-drug trafficking, and tax evasion, and dishonest misappropriation of property by cheating/fraud/forgery.

Plea moved by Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay states that the court may constitute an expert committee or direct the Law Commission of India to examine the stringent anti-corruption laws of the developed countries, particularly the laws relating to bribery, black money, Benami property, disproportionate assets, profiteering, hoarding, adulteration, black marketing, human-drug trafficking, tax evasion and dishonest misappropriation of property by cheating/fraud/forgery and prepare a comprehensive report within three months.

“Corruption undermines democracy and rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts the market, erodes the quality of life, and allows organized crimes like separatism, terrorism, Naxalism, radicalism, gambling, smuggling, kidnapping, money laundering, and extortion and other threats to human security to flourish,” stated the plea.

Plea added, “It hurts EWS-BPL (Economically weaker section-Below poverty line) families excessively by diverting the funds intended for the development, undermined the government’s ability to provide basic services, seeds inequality and injustice, and discourages foreign aid and investment.”

Furthermore, it stated, “Corruption is a key factor in economic underperformance and the main obstacle in poverty alleviation. The right to life liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution cannot be secured and the golden goals of the Preamble cannot be achieved without curbing corruption.”

“So, the Centre and State must implement stringent anti-corruption laws to give a strong message that it is determined to weed out corruption, black money, Benami transactions, and money laundering. The Centre must take steps to reaffirm the rule of law, improve transparency and warn the looters that betrayal of public trust will no longer be tolerated,” the plea read.