Even Modi supporters find Jaitley’s amendments ‘dangerous’ 

A large number of amendments were sneaked into the Finance Bill this week, all 40 of them, and passed by the Lok Sabha without much debate. Political parties and leaders were not taken into confidence. Eliciting the opinion of people was not thought necessary. Consultations were conspicuous by their absence.

Clearly, the Union Government has shed all fig leaves after the Uttar Pradesh election. So much so that the government has dropped the façade of claiming that ‘Aadhaar is not mandatory’ in deference to various Supreme Court orders. So much so that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley declared unambiguously on Thursday that ‘Aadhaar’, the biometric identity, would be linked to Income Tax Returns.

Some of the striking amendments in the Finance Bill are:

• Provides extraordinary powers to Income Tax officials to search any person or property without giving any reason
• Allows anybody to donate to political parties an unlimited amount, anonymously. The upper ceiling in existence has been withdrawn.
• Allows donations to political parties from foreign sources to be made anonymously
• Removes the cap on companies making donations to political parties
• Makes Aadhaar linkage mandatory for filing Income Tax Returns
• Fixes July 2017 as the cut-off date for linking PAN cards to Aadhaar, failing which PAN cards will become invalid.

The bill merges eight different tribunals into other existing ones. Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies which exist for dispute resolution. Earlier, the way in which members of these tribunals are chosen was done in different ways and governed by separate laws. Some required recommendations from the Judiciary, some were chosen by a special steering committee etc. Now, the Centre can choose the members through a simple gazette notification.

The amendments have been described as ‘dangerous’ by even staunch supporters of the Narendra Modi Government. Writing in Swarajya, R Jagannathan questioned the motive behind the amendments and said, “India’s is a weak state, and the legal system is crumbling under the weight of corruption and inefficiency. When serious crimes involving rape and violence can drag on for decades, who will believe that the Judiciary will somehow fast-track cases of ID misuse, theft or compromises on privacy…”

He went on to comment, “It is wrong in principle to empower the taxman to launch fishing expeditions on PAN data linked to Aadhaar. Far from using the system to detect suspected wrongdoing by specific individuals or companies, the system may be used to figure out a vast list of probable candidates for sending notices to – leading to avoidable hardships to millions of marginal deviants or even innocents. The right way is to first detect a possible tax evader by normal means, and then use technology and surveillance to establish proof.”

In a report published in thequint.com, Nikhil Pahwa questioned the Government’s hurry in rushing through with the amendments and wondered whether this amounts to contempt of court as the Supreme Court is still hearing the case against Aadhaar. He went on to point out: “It’s worth noting that the Aadhaar fails to guarantee privacy, and allows for mass surveillance of citizens under the guise of ‘national security’, a term which is vague and undefined under law. Citizens have no recourse under the law, and Section 47 of the Act prescribes that only the UIDAI can file a criminal complaint for theft of data.”

“As an opinion piece in The Financial Express last month pointed out: Of a total of over 24 crore PANs, the latest data indicates that only 97,33,664 have been linked to Aadhaar through e-returns”. The author opined that linking Aadhaar to PAN will “be a big source to gather banking transaction information, which can be an important indication of a person’s income profile.”

The Lok Sabha passed the Finance Bill on Wednesday. The Bill would now go to the Rajya Sabha, which can neither reject nor amend it, and must return it within 14 days, after which Lok Sabha may accept or reject all or any of its recommendations.