Lokmat Sanskarache Moti

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Winners with the President!

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

What is your reason to suspect?

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

“I do not want to desert dignity and reason, but if you desert dignity and reason and speak nonsense, your history will always chase you, your evil deeds and sins will always chase you”.

Dear reader, I beg your apology for repeating this quote of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an election rally. But it has a different context here. As an election speech, it is loaded with unpleasant & unnecessary comments that has now become Modi’s hallmark. It is also somewhat amusing. But there is a sub-text of threat running under the lines, and the tone of a bully is unmissable. But is it for real?

So far, the Modi administration has proved being given more to barking than biting. The pending cases against opposition leaders—be it the National Herald case against the Gandhi family, the alleged land scam of Robert Vadra, the Gandhi son-in-law, or the Saradha/Rose Valley chit-fund cases allegedly involving West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress—are progressing as sedately as most anti-corruption cases in India. But, underneath the Prime Minister’s rhetorical flourish, the stage is quietly being set for the unrolling of a new hard state. It is in conformity with the current “alt-right” narrative that much of today’s “ills” are due to over-extension of the due process of law.

Its first sign came in finance minister Arun Jaitley’s budget speech, when he proposed to amend Section 132 of the Income Tax Act. It authorises a raid whenever there is a “reason to believe” or “reason to suspect” that the concerned person is hiding his wealth. Tax officers are under no obligation to disclose such “reason to suspect” to anyone, least of all to the targeted assessee. In yet another change, the tax authority will be free to requisition some other authority (Enforcement Directorate, for that matter) to deliver books of account, documents or assets of the assessee. The amendments will take effect retrospectively from the time the concerned laws were enacted, which are April 1962 and October 1975 respectively. The retrospective amendment in the Finance Bill 2017 is a poison dart that not only overturns a basic principle in law that none should be punished for an ‘offence’ that was not deemed an offence at the time of its commission. More significantly, the amendments are indeed very harsh as recording of “reason to suspect” is held to be a safeguard to prevent searches at will or directions and fishing expeditions.

I am told Jaitley seems emboldened by “Pooran Mal Etc V. Director of Inspection (Investigation) of Income Tax” in which a Constitution bench held that Section 132 inter alia did not run against the fundamental rights. But that judgment came in view of the Section as it now exists, not in the context of its proposed mutilation. The amendment, in its present form, may give free play to tax sleuths to unleash the so-called raid raj on assesses based on rumour, canard, whim or unsubstantiated suspicion. The tax officials were fighting for a long time to acquire this draconian power and they succeeded finally. It also looks like a page taken from history as this is exactly how the financial arms of the 1975 Emergency worked under Indira Gandhi, using Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities (COFEPOSA) Act as the fearsome umbrella to detain the regime’s resourceful adversaries without trial. Pranab Mukherjee, presently President of India, was a junior minister in the revenue department.

That Mukherjee did not unlearn his early lessons in “hard state” became evident in his handling of the dispute on transfer pricing of multinational telecom company Vodafone as Finance Minister during UPA-II. It launched the Indian operations by buying stakes in Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based company, but Income Tax authorities in India insisted that the transfer pricing, or transaction between two foreign entities for acquisition of a domestic business, would come in its jurisdiction. When the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Vodafone, dismissing IT Department’s jurisdiction, Mukherjee, in his last budget in 2012, brought retrospective amendments to the tax laws. India was globally reprimanded for retrospective amendment of tax laws and subsequently slid sharply down the ladder of ‘ease of business’. Critics of Mukherjee’s apparent overzealousness included most BJP leaders, including Jaitley. 

In his 2014 budget speech, Jaitley was no longer critical of retrospective amendments to tax laws but he was circumspect. “The sovereign right of the government to undertake retrospective legislation is unquestionable. However, this power has to be exercised with extreme caution and judiciousness keeping in mind the impact of each such measures on the economy and the overall investment climate. This government will not “ordinarily” bring about any change retrospectively which creates a fresh liability”. Jaitley said in the same speech that he was committed to a “stable and predictable” tax regime.  

Both Modi and Jaitley had invested a good measure of their youthful days in the struggle against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. While the former worked for RSS under concealed identity and the latter being kept in detention for the entire period under draconian MISA. Of all the laurels Jaitley has earned at the bar or in the political sphere in his illustrious political career, the shiniest is the sacrifice he made during Emergency. When Modi rants against the corrupt, he commands an unusually large number of sympathetic nods. His demonetisation drive, however painful, got mass acceptance as most felt he was against the privileged class. If Modi continues to command high ratings across the country, Jaitley’s graph as FM rose too. 

But it seems the dark memories of the days when the Constitution was kept in abeyance are fading from Modi’s and my friend Jaitley’s memory. It is unfortunate that the government has  got the math wrong after four decades. 

Modi-govt judiciary bonhomie in top gear

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Modi-govt judiciary bonhomie in top gear

5 SC judges appointed

150 HC judges next in line

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Feb 15

After prolonged delays, five new judges were today appointed to the Supreme Court. The appointments are reflection of new found bon-homie between the Modi government and the judiciary after Justice J S Khehar took over as Chief Justice of India early last month.President Pranab Mukherjee signed their Warrants of Appointment and the notifications will be issued shortly.

Lokmat was the first to break the story on January 28 saying that the Modi Government is now working in tandem with CJI J S Khehar and there is every possibility of return of the “Achchhe Din” (good days) in the judiciary.

The Lokmat had also said “If reports are to be believed, most of the vacancies in Supreme Court will be filled during the next few weeks and also in high courts.”

Those elevated to the apex court are : Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Rajasthan HC Chief Justice Naveen Sinha, Kerala HC Chief Justice Mohan M Shantanagouder, Chhattisgarh HC Chief Justice Dipak Gupta and Karnataka HC judge S Abdul Nazeer.

The working strength of the Supreme Court has received a fillip with the fresh appointments. Though it has a sanctioned strength of 31, the top court was working with only 23. Now the strength has gone up to 28.

The SC collegium will meet shortly to recommend the remaining three names for the highest court. The reason for not picking the remaining names was lack of consensus within the collegium itself.

The vacancies in SC and various high courts had been stuck as former CJI T S Thakur and Modi were not on the same page. Those familiar with behind-the-scenes goings-on, majority of vacancies in the high courts will also be filled on a priority basis.

The government resolved the issue after CJI Khehar went public saying that the much-delayed Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for the appointment of judges will be decided shortly.

The bon-homie will ensure that more than 152 vacancies in various high courts also filled sooner than expected.

Sources say that the Prime Minister walked an extra mile to develop rapport with CJI Khehar when he rang him on the  New Year to congratulate him. Later, they had a meeting and also at a state banquet  at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The two have met on more than three occasions during the past 25 days.

CJI Khehar is workaholic, tough and doesn’t believe in hogging the lime-light. He wants to cut delays at courts right from the district level and in perfect harmony with the digitization program.

Never a vote-less Year

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

India is a nation with its carnival of elections. The Lok Sabha election is a colossal affair that involves a population nearly a seventh of humanity. Yet it does not speak the last word even for a year or two. In 2014, the consummate victory of BJP under Narendra Modi kept doubts and disgruntlement on a low key. But that was only for a while. The very next year, in the city state of Delhi, the fiercely anti-BJP Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept the 70-member assembly, grabbing 67 and leaving only three seats for BJP. The BJP succeeded in grabbing Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra (with Shiv Sena help). But after a few months, in the crucial state of Bihar, it was repeated. RJD chief Lalu Yadav and incumbent chief minister Nitish Kumar, sworn enemies over a decade, made friends; their alliance trounced BJP. All this led to an unprecedented national mood-swing to the detriment of Modi, holding up his reform plans and denting his authority. Is it good for democracy, or not? 

One argument is that the division of power in a democracy is all about checks and balances, and, being so, it is perhaps good for the nation to keep the party in power accountable throughout its tenure, with the series of assembly elections being a way of keeping it on the edge. On the flip side, though, it invites too much discordance for the Central government to carry out its mandate, leading ultimately to ‘policy paralysis’, the malady that plagued the previous UPA-II government. Democracy, like the judicial system, is certainly adversarial at its core. But for a government to perform it needs consensus, which an unending procession of elections can disrupt. 

This February-March, there will be elections, not only in the mega-state of Uttar Pradesh but in six more, including Punjab and later this year in Gujarat. 

The 2018 calendar too is ‘eventful’, with elections due in Congress-ruled Karnataka and the BJP-ruled Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Even in 2019, when the next general election is due, as many as eight states, including key states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, will have their assemblies re-elected. There is no guarantee that all the elections will be synchronous. The cycle of elections got disrupted in the late Sixties, with the rise of anti-Congress parties across north India leading to dissolutions of legislative houses at the Centre and states. It is now like a clock that has its movements gone haywire. They must be reassembled if the clock has to tick on. 

Efforts towards it are in progress, though there is no consensus in sight. The government now seems willing to go by the decision of the parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, headed by Dr. E. M. Sudarsana Nachiappan (Congress), which has made the following recommendation: that elections be held in two phases, first, that of some legislative assemblies bunched together around the mid-term of the Lok Sabha, and the rest of the assemblies going to poll at the end of the Lok Sabha’s term. The idea is to club together all state assemblies going to poll in a span of six months to one year. If, for instance, such a law were already in place, Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra would have gone to poll in sync with 2014 general election, and Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu. Puducherry etc. were to hold elections on a fixed date (or dates) this year. 

It also implies that a good many states in which polls are due in 2018 must wait for up to a year if their elections are to synchronise with 2019 general election. On the other hand, to make elections simultaneous, it may be necessary to shift the timing of Lok Sabha elections too. 

All this require amendment to Article 83(2) providing for a term of five years for the House of the People, and Article 172(1) providing for a five-year tenure for the legislative assemblies from the dates of their first sitting. The Committee has recommended that in order to hold early elections to Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies, one of the two conditions must be met: (a) a motion for an early general election must be passed by the House, or (b) a no-confidence motion must be passed by the House, with no alternative government being passed, with no alternative government being elected within 14 days. Dr. Nachiappan’s party, Congress, is not in favour of the changes on the ground that these are “impractical, unworkable and can lead to a scenario where the necessary balance in the Indian democracy given the diversity of the country is lost”. Now the Congress has suggested that there should be a Constitutional amendment bill if Modi wants his wish to be implemented.

The liberal camp views the move with apprehension. It smells a political motive. It is generally believed that when elections are held together voters act similarly. Popular wisdom, though, is that Indian voters are “astute” enough to distinguish between voting for government at the state level and that at the Centre. But IDFC Institute, a Mumbai-based think tank, has, in a research paper, has established, based on data since 1999 elections, that there is 77 per cent probability of an Indian voters preferring the same party at the Centre and state if elections are held simultaneously. So there may not be much evidence in support of our voter’s fabled “astuteness”. 

Interestingly, the Election Commission of India and President Pranab Mukherjee have also come forward to support the government desire to hold simultaneous polls.

But the core problem for Modi is to persuade the non-Congress opposition to come on board. Modi succeeded in getting all including Congress together on the GST issue as it was to benefit all. But the opposition suspects simultaneous poll to be a ruse to shrink the space for making up in the subsequent innings.  

Other kings of good times

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Why did you let Vijay Mallya escape even though he never paid back the nine thousand crore rupees he owed the banks, thundered Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi ? "You began it all", BJP finance minister Arun Jaitley reminded him, "when your government allowed Ottavio Quattrocchi to flee the country". Jaitley then softened his tone and explained to the younger Congress leader that the act of the Gandhi family-friend in 1993 had come at a time when the Swiss authorities named Quattrocchi as a recipient of the Bofors slush money. The CBI had even written to the then (Congress) government to impound his passport. "That makes Quattrocchi's escape a criminal act", Jaitley went on to pontificate. Mallya's case falls in a different category, he argued. He said neither the lending banks had demanded that he be prevented from flying out nor was there any request from the Enforcement Directorate, investigating possible money laundering cases against Mallya, to desist him from leaving the country. It's a different matter that the CBI had to apologize for its own folly in the case later in a press statement.

Prez anguished over Modi govt's response

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Prez anguished over Modi govt's response

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Nov 3 :

President Pranab Mukherjee is reported to be deeply anguished over the inadequate response of the government to restrain voices who are vitiating communal harmony and an intolerant environment.

Highly placed sources in the Rashtrapati Bhavan admit that it is unusual for the President to speak against the growing culture of intolerance in the country not once, twice but three times within a span of one month. The President is aware that all eyes are set on Bihar assembly polls for the past more than two months and this has led to vitiating the social fabric of the country. 

Still, the President expected that the government will take appropriate steps after he spoke for the first time on the issue in the first week of October. But nothing visible was seen on the ground. Rather, the government did very little except for the PM mentioning it in his public meetings in Bihar. When the President spoke for the third time, the Modi government deployed Union finance minister Arun Jaitley to assuage the "hurt feelings" and called on him.  Jaitley has extremely cordial and personal relations with Pranab Mukherjee. It was only after this meeting with Pranab Mukherjee that Jaitley put out his blog on the Facebook strongly criticising well-wishers of his party and government and asked them not to make irresponsible statements. 

But the President seems far from satisfied and expressed his views candidly because he is the protector of the Constitution of India and duty bound to articulate the view if someone attacks its basic fabric.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the President was particularly upset with some of the ministers of the government making irresponsible statements capable of fanning communal passion in the country. Though no names were mentioned but tourism and culture minister Mahesh Sharma has been under the glare and lately keeping silent.

The President himself being a very active politician, commands tremendous respect due to his stature and statesmanship, and has a perfect rapport with the Prime Minister who often drives to Rashtrapati Bhavan for advice. These meetings are kept secret and not even a Press release is issued about such meetings. The Prime Minister, it may be mentioned, met the President thrice during October and held discussions on a large number of subjects on one occasion.

Yet, the President was compelled to caution the country and the government against the growing intolerance and need for restraint. The President is peeved that the Modi government, in its zeal, did not listen to his advice on the Land Bill. The President has also not cleared the Gujarat anti-terror law so far. l The President is aware that all eyes are set on Bihar assembly polls for the past more than two months and this has led to vitiating the social fabric of the country.