The Opposition in the Rajya Sabha could successfully recommend five key amendments to the Finance Bill here on Wednesday. The Bill will now go back to the Lok Sabha and the Lower House can either accept or reject the recommendations.
Three amendments by senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on curbing additional powers to Income Tax officials, and CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury’s two amendments on nullifying the changes made to the Companies Act on political funding were accepted by the elders. The amendments were adopted with a significant margin, with the difference of votes ranging between 27 and 34 votes. The Trinamool Congress staged a walkout, protesting Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s refusal to make changes to the Bill.
The debate on the Bill saw the Opposition ripping apart the Centre’s claims that IT authorities are not given a free hand in raiding or seizing the properties of tax payees and that the political funding process has been made more transparent.
During his reply, Jaitley said the Opposition was trying to defend the tax offenders. The sources who report about any tax evasion cannot be allowed to be identified, he pointed out. The Minister maintained that the satisfaction note prepared by IT officials cannot be handed over to assesses and can be disclosed only at the courts. “The provision is aimed at protecting the whistleblower, who can be a trade union leader, a disgruntled employee or a dissatisfied partner,” he said.
His predecessor P Chidambaram raised questions even when Jaitley speaking. He asked if the satisfaction note will be shared without disclosing the source of information. Jaitley said sharing of the note could be used to track the source of information. “Nobody can search without satisfactory note. Satisfactory note cannot be made available to the target of the investigation,” he said.
On the sections on corporate funding of political parties, he said the steps are aimed at improving the transparency of political funding. Yechury questioned this while moving his amendments and said the amendments to Companies Act will open a Pandora’s box and result in an increase in corruption.
He billed the merger of various tribunals as an effort to rationalise and save the exchequer’s expenses. Yechury also said all judicial appointments to tribunals will be made only after consultations with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Dhoni’s AadhaarChidambaram raised the issue of cricketer MS Dhoni’s Aadhaar details getting revealed to the public. “Pentagon has been hacked. How will you protect hacking of income tax and bank accounts through Aadhaar?” he asked.
Jaitley replied: “I think Pentagon got hacked without Aadhaar being there. So hacking can take place even if Aadhaar is not involved. If technology can be breached, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use technology. There are safeguards in the law to penalise anyone leaking information.”
He added that the firm that disclosed Dhoni’s data has been blacklisted for 10 years.
Jaitley refused to answer a direct question from Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, as to how many cases of PAN duplication were reported in the recent past. The Finance Minister strongly defended the Centre’s endeavour to make Aadhaar compulsory for access to various benefits, saying it is necessary to check frauds, including tax evasion. “Earlier, some of us had doubts over Aadhaar...Some of your people (in Congress) also had doubts. Later, a presentation was made to the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) where the doubts were cleared,” he said.