Financial Express: New Delhi: Tuesday, June 26, 2018.
Though the
convictions based on them have been few and far between, information about the
change in the assets of MPs/MLAs is an important tool when it comes to keeping
tabs on the actions of the political class. Such information is available to
the public every five years, when assets-disclosures are required to be filed
on affidavit prior to fighting an election even earlier, if the elections are
held mid-term. The problem, however, is that, by and large, there is not that
much the lay citizen can do with this. You can be horrified by the, say, 200%
increase in the assets of your local MP over the past five years, but you have
no way of knowing if this is proof enough of his/her accepting bribes. Several
high-profile politicians, for instance, have explained the increase in the
assets away by saying they got birthday presents from their supporters; others
have declared a huge jump in agricultural income that, as per the law, does not
have to be declared to the tax authorities.
In 2013,
however, as per a report in The Indian Express, the Election Commission (EC)
decided to lend a helping hand. It asked the Central Board of Direct Taxes
(CBDT) to start scrutinising election affidavits, to verify if the assets
declared matched the incomes declared by these candidates in the period since
the last affidavit. Not all affidavits were to be scrutinised, just those ones
where the increase in assets seemed unreasonable or where the assets were
sizeable, but no PAN number was declared. In response to a PIL in the Supreme
Court last year, the CBDT said it was investigating the assets of seven
incumbent Lok Sabha MPs as well as 257 MLAs the PIL was filed by an NGO on
grounds that the assets of various MPs and MLAs had grown substantially between
the polls. While the EC feels these investigation reports are public
information as they pertain to the veracity of the information in the
affidavits that are made public the CBDT is of the view that these reports
cannot be made public under the Income Tax Act where information about
investigations cannot be made public; indeed, the Directorate General of Income
Tax, the entity that conducts the investigations, is not covered by the Right
to Information (RTI) Act. While the CBDT is undoubtedly correct in arguing that
information on assessees is protected under the income tax law, an exception
has already been carved out in the case of MLAs/MPs no one else has to, by law,
make their assets public, but MPs/MLAs have to. As such, the CBDT reports are
merely an addition to the election affidavits, a means to know whether the
affidavits are accurate or not. The investigation reports must be made public.
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