The report which was tabled in Parliament on Thursday, was also marked by dissent notes from former minister S Jaipal Reddy and two CPM members Biplab Dasgupta and Rupchand Pal.

According to the report, "the committee is astonished to find that the even crimes like falsification of accounts and imitation of fire arms find their place in the schedule." The committee, headed by Murli Deora, suggested that crimes of serious nature which pose threat not only to the stability of the financial system but also to the sovereignty and integrity of the country should be retained and the rest of the offences be omitted.

The committee further pointed out that clause 3(b) was particularly very harsh and could lead to a situation where anybody dealing with anyperson which had committed an offence of money laundering could unwittingly and unknowingly be brought within the ambit of the Act. In order to obviate such a situation, the Committee recommended that the word `knowingly' be inserted in relevant clauses.

The committee wanted that the word "financial institution or intermediary" be substituted as "banking company, financial institution or intermediary". It also wanted the Bill to clearly define terms like `person' and `cash transaction'.

The clause 11 of the proposed bill makes it mandatory for all institutions and intermediaries to maintain and furnish the records of all transactions include single as well as a series of transactions exceeding Rs 25 lakh in value within a month to the Commissioner of Income Tax.

The committee pointed out that the clause 11 covers all sorts of transactions including cheque payments, cash payments, deposits and withdrawals. This, it said, would lead to not only increasing the paper work but also be impractical toimplement.

The committee suggested that the limit of Rs 25 lakh should only be confined to cash transactions. Also such information be furnished every month to the Director and not the Income Tax Commissioner.

In the clause dealing with the power of survey, it was specified that an authority could conduct the survey, "even when he does not have any information in possession." This, according to the committee, "seems to be totally discretionary and subjective power."

The committee suggested that clause 15(1) be rewritten as "notwithstanding, anything contained in any other provision of this Act, where an authority has reason to believe on the basis of information in his possession that an offence under section 3 has been committed, he may enter any place ..."

The committee was also of the view that there should be definite time limit within which a person or the detained person was to be brought before the Gazetted Officer or the Magistrate.

The committee held the view that in case a particulartransaction was involved in money laundering, it might not be necessary that the other inter-connected transactions were also involved in money-laundering and the presumption that the other transactions were involved in money laundering might lead to causing avoidable harassment. To do away with the possibility of wrongly mixing genuine transaction with tainted one, the committee suggested inclusion of words like "unless otherwise proved to the satisfaction of the authority concerned" in the relevant clauses.

It has also suggested that the convection by court be extended to two years (from three months as proposed in the Bill) and fine upto Rs 50,000 (from Rs 10,000). Its other important suggestion was that the adjudicating authority should be made independent of the executive, having legal/judicial background.