Recently the Income Tax department announced that they would pay handsomely (read reward) to anyone who provides leads that lead to unearthing of unaccounted wealth or black money as the aam admi refers to it. This would be one more way of trying to implement the Prime Ministers promise of putting Rs 15 lakhs in every citizen’s account. The other promise is “Na Khayega, Na khanna Dunga”. A slew of measures have been announced but for the man on the street nothing has changed. The black money or illegal wealth continues to grow right in front of his eyes.
Black money is of two types, one that is generated from totally illegal means viz: extortion, corruption, gambling, pimping etc. The other is legal business but the profits are not shown to the taxman. While there is always news of most illegal means being curbed and many going to jail for wrong doings, in the case of corruption nothing much seems to happen and if it does, it is hardly a deterrent as the accused goes to jail maybe 25 years later. Even the legally made money turns black because corruption allows the officials to look the other way.
Hence the Prime Minister is doing a good job pushing laws to make black money visible and trying to deter people from indulging in making it, however he is far off the mark because he is doing nothing to actually curb corruption. There is absolutely no fear in a single officials mind that if they indulge in any corrupt activity they will have to face the wrath of the establishment and that too quickly.
Recently was called to the CBI office to verify a receipt we had issued to an official who is now under investigation. The official had kept all the receipts of payments made in cheque and cash. Assuming he had thrown out the cash receipts then there would be no one call to verify them as they would not exist. Does it mean that the value of his construction is the sum total of the proof of payments found? Can you imagine the amount of time needed to verify every receipt or invoice. What happens if the parties are outside the State, will it be feasible for them to attend the CBI office and give witness as it is called? Apparently this is the procedure and this is what it takes to make a case for disproportionate assets. Would it be not advisable to instead get a valuation done and if your proof is lower for an item that is valued use it else go with the valuation. That way people will be forced to ensure proper documentation is kept. It would be much faster. However under current time consuming methods it takes years before the case will even reach the courts.
The biggest source of information on unaccounted wealth (read black money) is the affidavits filed before the elections. Irrespective of the state of the Indian economy the wealth of the politicians increase manifold, but once he is out of power his wealth does not grow at the same pace? Food for thought right!
One very simple way for politicians to turn black into white and then invest legitimately is loans. Usually this is simply round tripping of his own funds, this is where the Income Tax department should be focussed on, why would someone loan so much money, does he have the capacity in the first place and where did he make that money to lend. The other method politicians use is selling some silly asset for an absurd price, it can be shares in an unlisted entity or koka company as they are known or real estate. Would this not be easy to track? It would have been provided the I-T department can act independently. They cannot act as going after politicians with ill gotten wealth is like hunting tigers, it is banned. Not banned but it is difficult, the law makers have made laws which ensures that they are always above and beyond the law. This must change. A corrupt politician should be equal to a common criminal and must be treated as such.
Recently there has been a lot of news about the fact that Air Asia is supposed to have paid big money to get the aviation policy to be beneficial to them. The investigators have found payments made to shell companies for non-existent work done. Now they have to work backwards to find out who received the payments, unfortunately while it clearly points to official’s having received kickbacks there is no mention of any politician being involved, highly unlikely but that is the way the cookie crumbles. While this is an old case, can the authorities follow up on the Kadamba plateau case where an entire “smart city” went without electricity just so that an electric high tension line could be allegedly moved illegally to favour a builder. Surely the same principles involved in the Air Asia case can be applied here. If it is true the money trail will be similar, big payments to some small contractors for non-existent work, and big withdrawals by these small contractors for cash payments.
The most important factor that needs to be addressed is the fact that paying a bribe and receiving is a criminal offence too. This means that no one can complain as he too will go to jail. It is assumed no one pays except under duress, hence decriminalise giving a bribe as soon as possible.
There is no will to stop corruption and any cosmetic changes will not work, can PM Modi walk the talk and make it easier to implement the “Na khanna dunga” portion of his promise.
(The author prefers to write rather than chat in a balcao)
