Parliament last week cleared much of its vital Budget Session agenda when the Lok Sabha passed the Finance Bill, 2017, along with two Appropriation Bills, and approved Demands for Grants of Central Ministries. The two Appropriation Bills, which take care of the supplementary demands for 2016-17 and fresh demands for 2017-18, were later returned by the Rajya Sabha, which is slated to take up the Finance Bill, 2017, next week. The debates on the financial business showed the government had gained confidence, and its stand on demonetisation, and efforts for unanimity on Goods and Services Tax laws, were receiving due attention. The Finance Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday along with 29 government amendments, providing for insertion of 38 new clauses and two new schedules in the Bill.

Several members protested the “tagging” of non-tax Bills along with the Finance Bill, with RSP’s N K Premachandran saying “it’s a backdoor legislation,” and that it was “never heard in the history of Indian legislative mechanism.” Speaker Sumitra Mahajan overruled the objections saying rules do permit non-taxation proposals in the Finance Bill.

 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley quoted former Speaker G V Mavalankar and said when a Bill substantially deals with imposition, abolition of tax, etc., the other provisions necessary for the achievement of the Bill’s objectives cannot take away from it the category of Money Bills.

Premachandran argued while the Finance Bill related to financial proposals for a year, the amendments to 40 existing Acts would have permanent impact. Saugata Roy of Trinamul Congress said “let the Finance Bill consist of taxation proposals only”. The amendments linked Aadhaar with the filing of income tax returns. Jaitley said people used several PAN cards to avoid tax; the Aadhaar linkage would prevent that. Cap on cash transactions has been reduced from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 2 lakh. Biju Janata Dal members staged a walk-out on the Aadhaar issue while the Congress left the House as the Government gave no assurance on waiving farm loans.

 Dwelling on the benefits of demonetisation, the Finance Minister told the Lok Sabha that cash deposits after the high currency ban had exposed people with incomes disproportionate to their deposits and they were being sent notices. He told the Rajya Sabha that the demonetisation was a shock necessary for the economy and that the “shadow economy” had received a “big jolt” by the step. Alluding to the BJP’s rich dividends in the recent UP and Uttarakhand polls, the Minister said the decision had proved politically correct also. The Government objective was that cash must not remain a facilitator for crime. Jaitley was heard with silence when he said the tax collections had already exceeded the targets. Replying to the debate on the General Budget and the Appropriation Bills, Jaitley told Elders that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council was India’s first federal decision-making body. All its decisions were taken unanimously, and the main Act and its connected laws would usher in a “rule-based” system of indirect taxation. The GST roll-out was planned from 1 July, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present in the Lok Sabha at the passage of the Finance Bill, and in the Rajya Sabha at the passage of the two Appropriation Bills.

The Upper House had a lively debate on electoral reforms where the

main target was the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs). Although Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was hard put to explain why the government failed to respond to the Election Commission’s demand for paper trail machines for attachment to the EVMs, the Minister silenced the House on the EVMs’ reliability saying “Do you mean to say the EVMs are OK if the BJP loses, and wrong when the party wins”.