Opposition scores moral victory as Rajya Sabha returns Finance Bill to LS with amendments

Opposition parties registered a moral victory in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday by sending back the Finance Bill, 2017 to Lok Sabha with several amendments that they alleged were brought in surreptitiously through the back door as the money bill and thus were unconstitutional.

On the insistence of a vociferous opposition, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh's three amendments were put to vote by deputy chairman PJ Kurien and to the humiliation of the treasury benches all the amendments were adopted by 80 and 84 votes in favour and 50 and 52 votes against.

One of the amendments related to a clause which gave powers to an Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax, rather than the Commissioner as prescribed earlier, to order searches. Singh said junior officers should not be given such powers since the Income Tax Department is already notorious in terms of corruption.

Similarly, two amendments moved by CPM leader Sitaram Yechury relating to abolition on exemption on Corporate funding also found favour of the majority votes by 80:53 thus forcing the government to refer the bill back to the Lok Sabha with amendments.

Launching a scathing attack on the government, Yechury said he has no option but to move the amendments to register his protest as it will open floodgates of political corruption hitherto unknown to our country.

Though sending Finance Bill with amendments is a mere formality as being the money bill government will easily negate them in the Lok Sabha and adopt the bill in its original form, the opposition drew some solace in at least putting their protest on record that may allow it to refer the anomalies on a later date.

Before Finance Minister Jaitley's response to the discussion, Jairam Ramesh of Congress raised serious objections to the Finance Bill and even cited one article titled 'Aadhar Overreach' written in pro-BJP Swarajya magazine. He also attacked it for changing the bill in the middle by exempting relatives in the inheritance tax.

"Every conceivable Act government was uncomfortable with has been dealt in the Finance Bill through amendments....The government has completely emasculated the Green Act through the finance bill. Why couldn't it bring the amendments in the normal route in the Lok Sabha," said Ramesh rechristening the Finance Bill as Finance Bill Terrorism.

Defending the bill, Jaitley said the critique of the finance bill is "based on erroneous hypothesis". A war of words ensued between the finance minister and his predecessor P Chidambaram of Congress as Jaitley started defending the amendment done in section 132(a) of the IT Act through a web of explanations on the satisfaction note and the protection of the source.

The two stalwarts got into a tiff again over Aadhaar, as Chidambaram held up the example of cricket icon MS Dhoni's wife Sakshi alleging a leak of his Aadhaar details and asked Jaitley how the government planned to protect the privacy of transactions, facts and materials.

"The Pentagon is being hacked what is the guarantee you can prevent the hacking of bank accounts, Income Tax details through Aadhaar number?" Chidambaram asked.

Inviting uproar in the House, Jaitley quipped, "The Pentagon got hacked even without the Aadhaar being there. So the hacking doesn't happen because of Aadhaar."

Chidambaram retorted, "Don't caricature the question... If you don't want to answer, say I don't want to answer."

Not yielding ground, Jaitley persisted saying, "If firewalls are to be breached, they can happen anywhere. That is not a ground that hacking takes place only because Aadhaar is there."

Referring to Sakshi Dhoni's complaint, Jaitley said, "It was immature behaviour on behalf of the person who went there...The agency has been fined and blacklisted for 10 years."