This refers to Sukumar Mukhopadhyay’s letter “…or a display of dislike?” (August 10). It is now beyond debate that policy decisions favouring retrospective amendments to the Income Tax Act and the introduction of the General Anti-Avoidance Rules were more about showing the Supreme Court its place in the constitutional scheme, and didn’t stem from a genuine concern for equitable application of the law and its rational interpretation. The recurrent noise unleashed by tax officials over the predicament of the Vodafone decision bears ample proof of their efforts to score brownie points.
The role played by the then finance secretary in this unwholesome controversy can’t be ignored. It is too easy to lay the blame on the finance minister when tax policies are initiated in the tax planning division of the Central Board of Direct Taxes. The bureaucracy did not consider anything beyond its immediate concern about getting even with the judiciary. The result was predictable: the investment environment of the country in general and foreign investments in particular were badly affected. The upshot of it all was a total loss of investor confidence with much wider collateral damages to the economy.
G R Saha, Kolkata
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