The subject of black money evokes a great deal of excitement, whether it is the finance minister or the aam aadmi . The aam aadmi is perpetually envious that they are unable to outwit the netas or the corporates in their black money pursuits. On the other hand, finance ministers are keen to score ‘brownie points’ with the electorate on the Government’s resolve to tackle the scourge of black money. The moot point is: how serious are they?

This year’s Budget did not disappoint at all with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley going the whole hog in his Budget speech. He laid out the grand strategy of the new dispensation to tackle the menace of black money, both within India and also money stashed abroad. The importance of ‘black money’ could be best gauged from the fact that this subject got the maximum percentage of coverage in Jaitley’s nearly 18,000-word budget speech. The Modi-led government getting hyper serious about tackling domestic black money is bad news for the real estate industry, which has made merry all these years. However, for many critics, Jaitley’s promise to come up with a “new and more comprehensive” benami prohibition transaction law seems like ‘old wine in new bottle’.

This is not surprising; India’s past efforts to implement a benami transaction prohibition law have come to nought. India had in 1988 enacted a law to prohibit benami transactions, but for mysterious reasons did not implement it — no rules were issued to implement this law!

However, come 2011, the UPA government under Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee sought to make mends and introduced a Bill to amend the 1988 law. The Bill went to the Standing Committee headed by BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, who gave his report in 2012 with recommendations. However, nothing came of it.

Will India be third time lucky?

KR Srivats, Deputy Editor

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