Fight against black money: LS passes Bill to check benami transactions

New Delhi, July 27

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed an amendment Bill for benami transactions, a move that is aimed at checking illegal stashes of money.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the legislation — The Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Bill, 2015 — was a measure to check unaccounted money, aimed at seizing benami property and prosecuting holders.

"A lot of people who have unaccounted money buy benami property under fictitious names ... these transactions have to be discouraged," he said.

However, Jailtey said genuine religious trusts would be kept out of the legislation’s ambit.

"There is Section 58 under the law that clearly states that charitable or religious organisation properties, the government has power to exempt those," Jaitley said responding to concerns of some members about the law’s applicability to religious organisations.

"If there is a genuine property belonging to a church or a mosque or a gurdwara or a temple, section 58 says that the government has the power to exempt it," he said.

The Minister however warned against using exemption for tax evasion.

Responding to suggestions of members on why the government has not come out with a new law in place of the 1988 Act, the Minister said such a move would have given "immunity to persons who acquired benami properties during the period from 1988 to 2016".

"A new law would have meant giving immunity to everybody from the penal provisions and giving a 28-year immunity would not have been in the larger public interest, particularly if large amounts of unaccounted black money have been used... A new law would have had consequences which would have been detrimental to public interest itself," Jaitley said. — PTI