Parliament made irrelevant: Opposition

Attacks govt for way Finance Bill passed, move to make Aadhaar compulsory for filing I-T returns

Finance Bill, parliament debate Finance Bill, I-T returns, Tapan Kumar Sen, Aadhaar compulsory for filing I-T returns, Aadhar mandatory, CPM attacks government, Digvijaya Singh, Rajya Sabha, indian express news

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament after the GST bills were passed Wednesday. Anil Sharma

With the fate of the Finance Bill always apparent, the Opposition today charged the government with subverting democracy and violating “the basic spirit of Constitution” by trying to circumvent the jurisdiction and powers of Rajya Sabha. “The constitutional integrity has been seriously compromised… you [the government] have violated the basic spirit of the Constitution,” Tapan Kumar Sen of the CPM said. He said Rajya Sabha was becoming party to a “crime on the Constitution” by failing to prevent the government from passing the Finance Bill in the way it was being passed.

The Opposition was angry with the fact that the Finance Bill, which deals with all the new financial proposals at the start of the year, contained provisions to make far-reaching changes in a number of other legislation which would normally have been done through separate standalone bills. Incorporating them in the Finance Bill ensured that Rajya Sabha, which has no powers to change or amend a money bill, would have little or no say on these changes. “This is not a Finance Bill. This is much more than just a Finance Bill. This is actually an agenda for reducing the Parliament to complete irrelevance, both the Houses… The finance minister has really made a serious effort to finish off the spirit of democratic discourse, to finish off parliamentary democracy to not only reduce Rajya Sabha to irrelevance but also to reduce Lok Sabha to complete irrelevance,” Jairam Ramesh of the Congress said. His colleague Digvijaya Singh said the government had made a habit of converting all its uncomfortable legislation into money bills because its lack of majority in Rajya Sabha.

“There are 40 laws which are sought to be amended through provisions brought in this Finance Bill. Except three — part 7, part 10 and part 13 — all of them are ordinary bills and should not have been part of the Finance Bill. This means that the government has snatched away the right of Rajya Sabha to discuss and make amendments to all these laws,” Digvajaya said.

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Digvijaya later moved three amendments to the Finance Bill. These were accepted by the House, thanks to the Opposition majority in Rajya Sabha. The amendments, a temporary setback to the government, are likely to be rejected by the Lok Sabha. Several Opposition members objected to the proposals making Aadhar mandatory for opening of bank accounts or filing income tax returns. K T S Tulsi alleged that the government had not given any serious thought to the possibilities of data theft. “It can jeopardise the privacy and security of citizens and no attention is being paid for safeguarding the data from hackers… Unless we can safeguard the data, only then can it be permitted to be used for the purpose for which the Act was enacted and only for the use of services,” he said.

Harivansh of the JD(U) said his party welcomed the efforts to reform the process of political funding but argued that the proposals made in the budget with this objective, and incorporated in the Finance Bill, were not enough. “There have been 40 committees to recommend actions to tackle black money but there has been no effective implementation. Similar is the case with political corruption. We would like the Congress and the BJP, being the two biggest parties which have run governments at the Centre, to come together on this and suggest measures that are acceptable to all,” he said.

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