Govt loses face as RS passes Finance Bill with 5 Oppn amendments

New Delhi: The government on Wednesday faced a major embarrassment in the Rajya Sabha as five amendments moved by the Opposition to the Finance Bill 2017 were adopted before the House approved the measure.

Of the five opposition amendments, three were moved by the Congress member Digvijaya Singh and two by Sitaram Yechury of CPI(M).

The amendments were adopted with a significant margin, with the difference of votes ranging between 27 and 34 votes.

Trinamool Congress, which has 10 members, staged a walkout before the voting in the House where the ruling NDA is in a minority. In the 245-member House, the BJP has 56 members while the NDA jointly has 74 members.

Earlier, while replying to the debate, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley strongly defended the government's endeavour to make Aadhaar compulsory for access to various benefits, saying it was necessary to check frauds, including tax evasion.

While talking about Aadhaar, he admitted that it was a "great initiative" of the previous UPA government and said the NDA dispensation is expanding it.

"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," Jaitley said.

Responding to repeated questions by the Congress members as to why Aadhaar was being made mandatory, Jaitley asked why the technology should not be utilised as it was created for public benefit.

Congress leader P Chidamabaram asked whether the government could guarantee that the Aadhaar details would not be leaked through a hack.

To this, the Finance Minister said while hacking could not be ruled out, the firewalls should be made stronger.

"If the firewalls can be broken and hacking can take place, the hacking can take place anywhere," he said, adding "Hacking does not take place because of Aadhaar" and referred to such an incident that took place at the Pentagon in the US.

When referred to the leakage of Aadhaar details of cricketer M S Dhoni, Jaitley said it was the result of an "immature" act by somebody in Ranchi against whom action has been taken.

For this reason, the technology cannot be discredited, he said.

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

Yechury's two amendments related to a clause linked to political funding.

The amended Finance Bill, which contains provisions for taxation, will now have to be considered again by the Lok Sabha, which can either accept or reject the amendments. If it rejects the amendments, the bill is deemed to have been passed by Parliament.

Jaitley also responded to questions over changes proposed to the Income Tax laws and asserted that any source who reports about any tax evasion, cannot be allowed to be identified.

The Finance Minister said I-T authorities will conduct searches on the basis of "satisfaction note" which will only be dislcosed to the Courts and not the target of the investigation.

The provision is aimed at protecting the whistleblower which can be a trade union leader, a disgruntled employee or a dissatisfied partner.

His assurances, however, did not cut ice with the Opposition which kept asking questions.

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram's suggestion that the "satisfaction note" should be shared without disclosing the source of information was rejected by Jaitley, who argued that 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," Jaitley said.

He emphasised the changes in the Finance bill are against "economic offenders" and for protection of whistle blowers.