The government has a well established strategy and institutional mechanism to effectively deal with terrorist financing and money laundering problem. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) are effective instrumentalities to combat offences relating to terrorist financing and money laundering. A special Combating Financing of Terrorism (CFT) Cell has been created in the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2011 to coordinate with the Central Intelligence/Enforcement Agencies and the State Law Enforcement Agencies for an integrated approach to tackle the problem of terror funding. Also a Terror Funding and Fake Currency Cell has been set up in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to investigate terror funding cases.

The UAPA has been strengthened by amendments in 2013 which inter-alia includes enlarging the scope of proceeds of terrorism to include any property intended to be used for terrorism, enlarging the scope of Section 17 relating to punishment for raising funds for terrorist act by including within its scope, raising of funds both from legitimate or illegitimate sources by a terrorist organisation, terrorist gang or by an individual terrorist, and includes within its scope offences by companies, societies or trusts.

The PMLA has also been strengthened in 2013 by incorporating the provisions relating to removing the monetary threshold for schedule offences, strengthening confiscation and provisional attachment powers with regard to money laundering investigation, covering new financial institutions and designated non-financial business and professions within the scope of PMLA, enhancing the powers of Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to access information from banks and financial institutions and introduction of broad range of sanctions under PMLA including sanctions against designated directors and employees of reporting entities. Thus, both PMLA and UAPA have sufficiently stringent provisions to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Central and State Law Enforcement Agencies have registered a total of 217 FIRs and 132 charge sheets have been filed in various courts in terror financing cases since 2006. These also include 11 cases investigated by the NIA.

The Financial Acton Task Force (FATF) team from Paris had visited India in 2011 to monitor compliance of India’s action plan with FATF standards and since then India has complied with all FATF requirements and action plan items. It has been accepted and approved by the FATF in its plenary meeting held in June 2013. This was stated by the Minister of State for Home Affairs Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary in a written reply to a question by Ranjib Biswal in the Rajya Sabha.