Painting a grim picture of the post-bill days, industrialists fear its passage will stoke corruption and extortion by those responsible for enforcing the letter of the law.

Politicians have as much to fear from the proposals as does the common man, they say. Most industrialists felt the purview of the bill should be restricted to offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Arms Act, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. This is necessary to draw a line betweeen criminal and economic offences, they say.

Bells Controls chairman and managing director Sudhir Jalan described the bill as "one step forward and three step backwards." Ballarpur Industries joint managing director Vikram Thapar referred to the bill as `babudom at work.' The bill is"extremely regressive and repressive," he added.Escorts chairman Rajan Nanda said: "Law should not terrorise commerce. An economic law offender should not be punished like a criminal."

Conceding that money laundering has to be checked, DCM Shriram Consolidated managing director Ajay S Shriram said: "An environment must not be created where such an act can be used as a stick to be used against a suspect."Eicher chairman Subodh Bhargava said, "There should be a fair and prompt assessment of the law when breached under the act."

Most industrialists have expressed their resentment to the manner in which guilt is proposed to be fixed on a person under the bill.

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, Bhargava said.

Agencies should not be without commensurate accountability. "A counter check on the agency has to be in place otherwise it leaves room for harassment," he said.

"The country's legalsystem lacks enforcement and leads to harassment and misuse," Nanda added. Thapar and Jalan too concurred that the provisions of the bill are open to misuse by the law enforcement agencies.

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

Others like Benaras Beads chairman and managing director Binay Kumar said that most of the provisions included in the bill are already part of various statutes and could have been dealt with by civil court and Income Tax Act.Kumar said since the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other intelligence agencies have been empowered to initiate penal action, "there was no need to have a separate bill."

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

Kumar added: "The powers provided under this bill are just too much and will not be congenial for business environment."Jalan warned that the such a bill would drive away foreign investors-- both direct as well as institutional-- to other favourable destinations. The proposed act does not have any neutrality, Nanda added.