Lok Sabha rejects Rajya Sabha changes, okays Finance Bill
The amendments moved in the Upper House do not hold water as changes suggested for the Finance Bill by it are non-binding.
New Delhi: The Lok Sabha passed on Thursday the Finance Bill but rejected all five amendments approved by the Rajya Sabha a day before.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, however, invited suggestions from political parties on issues such as making election funding more transparent. This was one of the amendments by the Upper House.
A cap on donations to parties by private companies and curbing more powers given to taxmen were among the five amendments moved and approved by the Opposition parties, chiefly the Congress, in the Upper House.
The amendments moved in the Upper House do not hold water as changes suggested for the Finance Bill by it are non-binding.
Mr Jaitley said that the government could not accept the amendments, but invited suggestions from political parties, including the Congress and the BJD, to make election funding cleaner and more transparent.
The Lok Sabha later rejected the Rajya Sabha amendments by a voice vote, thus passing the Finance Bill 2017 and completing the budgetary exercise for 2017-18.
The finance minister said that most donations that come to political parties now were from unclean money, and there was complete non-transparency. He said it was not possible for the government to accept the amendment as it would limit the number of donors to political parties.
“The harsh reality is that we continue to do politics on the basis of undeclared money because if we do it on the basis of declared money somebody will write an editorial and will have a problem with every solution we offer,” he said.
As for the taxation amendments proposed by the Rajya Sabha, he said the current position would continue, and as a matter of “abundant caution” and to protect whistle-blowers, the bill has specified that the “satisfaction note” will not be given to the target of investigation.
Since 1961, he said, there has been no example that the target of investigation was revealed the satisfaction note, which forms the basis of investigation with regard to tax evasion.
The Rajya Sabha had also approved an amendment that there should be a cap of 7.5 per cent of net profit of the last three financial years for donation to political parties. It also approved a provision to disclose the name of political parties to which contributions have been made by a company.