The Lok Sabha on Monday passed the Income-Tax (No. 2) Bill, 2025, and the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, in just three minutes. The rapid passage occurred without debate, as opposition members protested outside Parliament over concerns related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and allegations of "vote chori" (vote theft). The bills, introduced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman aims to replace the six-decade-old Income Tax Act of 1961. The bills now await approval from the Rajya Sabha before being sent to President Droupadi Murmu for assent.
The Income Tax Bill 2025 was passed in Parliament in February during the budget session. The bill was then sent to Select Committee owing to the demand from the Opposition. The bill was withdrawn by Modi government last week stating the need for the same so that that opposition recommendations could be incorporated. Around 285 recommendations from a 31-member Select Committee chaired by BJP MP Baijayant Panda, had been incorporated, claimed the government. Alongside the Income-Tax (No. 2) Bill, the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2025, was passed to provide tax exemptions for subscribers of the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS), aligning its benefits with those of the New Pension Scheme (NPS).
Interestingly, the new Bill has also tweaked the powers of income tax officials during search and seizure operations. The new law mandates any person “who is found to be in possession or control of” any books of account or other documents in electronic form to provide the authorised officer assistance in accessing these, “including access code, by whatever name called”. Further, it allows the authorised officer to “override the access code to any computer system” if the access code is not made available. Crtiques have argued if this could lead to surveillance and breach of privacy.
The Select Committee defended these provisions in its report, saying that various “incriminating evidences and material are found/seized from electronic records including WhatsApp communications, emails, etc” and that passwords for these are often not shared with officials. However, some members of the committee had submitted dissent notes calling for changes to these provisions. Congress MP Amar Singh had state that the wording of the relevant section “gives very wide-ranging power to the government to force tax payees to hand over all types of personal digital data including passwords, chats, etc.” and asked for a reduction in these powers.
The INDIA bloc opposition had taken out a protest demonstration march from parliament to the office of election commission of India (ECI), on Monday, against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) commissioned in Bihar and also over the allegations of voter list manipulations. Congress Mp Rahul Gandhi had last week unveiled documents alleging that voter list had been manipulated in different constituencies by the ECI to benefit Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). The protest was stalled by Delhi police claiming only 30 MPs had the permission to go while their strength was 300. That led to a showdown between the Delhi Police that comes under Union Home Ministry and the opposition MPs. Several MPs including TMC Mitali Bag and Mahua Moitra had fallen sick while SP Akhilesh Yadav and others had tried breaching the police barricades. While the opposition was not in the house, the Income Tax revised Bill was passed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman.
