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Parliament passes Finance Bill as Lok Sabha rejects RS amendments

by IBNS 30 Mar 2017, 12:47 am

New Delhi, Mar 30 (IBNS) : Backed by the dominant BJP and allied party members in the Lok Sabha, Parliament on Thursday approved the Finance Bill 2017 after the lower house rejected five amendments by the Rajya Sabha with regard to curbing more powers to taxmen and a cap on donation by companies to political parties.

 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the amendments cannot be accepted by the Government, but all parties are welcome to come up with suggestion  to make electoral funding more clean and transparent.

The Lok Sabha  rejected the Rajya Sabha amendments by a voice vote, thus passing the Finance Bill 2017 and completing the budgetary exercise for 2017-18.

Defending the budget proposal, Jaitley said it is not possible for the Government to accept the amendment as it would limit the number of donors to political parties.

"The harsh reality is we continue to do politics on the basis of undeclared money, because if we do it on the basis of declared money... Somebody will write an editorial and will have a problem with every solution we offer," he said.

"Today we have given the option of receiving donations by cheque -- there is total transparency, it is clean money. Small donations by cash less than ₹2,000. You can receive donations online too. And do it by bonds which is clean money," Jaitley said.