Whispers Forum

Submission to Hon'ble Finance Minister Income tax new e-filing portal was launched in first week of June, 2021 with many added features to make t more tax payers friendly and easy to file the returns. Now the portal is operational and is reported that more than 1 lakh returns filed each day on new IT portal. Now the portal should be used efficiently and effectively to meet the deadline. How it can be achieved professionally. ITR1 is simplest 2 page form and easy to file and takes minimum resources of portal as well tax payers friendly. ITR2 seems to be most difficult and lengthy 27 pages form is very complex to fill the table 112A due to factor like grand fathering, indexation, equity oriented or debt MF etc without help of CA. ITR2 will consume more resources of portal and tax authorities and also difficult for tax payers. Considering more than 20 million tax payers are filing their returns using ITR1. Is there any solution without loss of revenue to Govt. to make the process faster and easy. Yes one of the options is to give option to tax payers to fill up IITR1 instead of ITR2 if there is no tax liabilities on account of LTCG in case of transfer of equity shares or equity oriented MF if otherwise eligible to file ITR1. The LTCG value can ne shown less than 1 lakh under exempt income as per Sec 112A. Filing of ITR1 number will increase. The process will increase the efficiency of not only portal but also of tax administration and will be tax payers friendly which is top priority of Govt. This point can be deliberated at appropriate level and decision taken. This will give big relief to large number of tax payers like salaried class, pensioners, house wives and others without any loss of revenue to Govt.. As far as data collection or availability of records are concerned, all the information or data is available with tax administration only data mining is required to fetch the required information. The information can also be obtained from the tax payers whenever tax authorities need it. To match number of DMAT accounts with ITR2 filing is not very relevant when all data is available with tax authorities. As portal is new, tax payers are not familiar with the new process of filing and may take some time to become conversant with the operation of new portal. When there is tax liability on account of LTCG, tax payers will file ITR2 only as there is no choice. This point of giving an option to tax payers to file ITR1 instead of ITR2 if there is no tax liability on account of LTCG on transfer of equity or equity oriented MF and if otherwise eligible to file ITR1 should be considered favourably to speed up the process of filing and tax payers friendly.
Naveen
No extension or re-employment for retired civil servants
I fully agree with Rajiv. No extension or re-employment for retired civil servants
S Gopal

The Appellant sought a copy of his service book which was not provided to him by the then CPIO. He further contested that his service book was available in the Institute at time of filing of RTI Application, however, perhaps it appears to have been misplaced from the records or is available with the other Institute. The CPIO, enlightened the CIC with the fact that there 28 Institutes including that of Appellant’s Institute which are governed by Ranlaxmi Adarsh Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya and get grants in aid. The PIO submitted that as on date the Appellant is himself working as an acting Principal as also he is the designated CPIO of the concerned Institute from where he has sought a copy of his service book. Upon a query from the CIC, the Appellant answered in affirmative that he is the designated CPIO in the said Institute. The CIC held that the Appellant being the current designated CPIO of the Institute can call for the service book/ record of his own from the Institute itself which is the custodian of his service record. The CIC directed the CPIO, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan to trace the records and procure a copy of the Appellant’s own Service book from the office records of the Institute. In the event of the service book not available with the said Institute, the CPIO, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan may find out and procure the same from the concerned Institute/ record holder where it is available.
Comments
Copy of the service book cannot be denied to the person to whom it pertains to under section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.
Citation: Anil anand v. Shri Ranlaxmi Adarsh Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya in File No : CIC/RSSAN/A/2019/160412 & CIC/RSSAN/A/2019/659686, Date of Decision : 07/07/2021
Dr. Anuradha Verma (dranuradhaverma@yahoo.co.in) is an expert on RTI matters and has co-authored the books RIGHT TO INFORMATION - LAW AND PRACTICE and PIO’s guide to RTI. Apart from her weekly article here, her other articles can be read at the website of RTI Foundation of India at the link: www.rtifoundationofindia.com

The government's announcement of 27% reservation for OBCs in all India quota for medical seats has brought great relief and cheer for the OBCs. It is worth pondering as to who amongst them will garner the seats. Most likely they may be from the well-off students who could afford the costly coaching etc leaving out a very large group of economically weaker sections amongst them. A plausible solution is to do away with NEET examination and allot seats through a computerised lottery system. This will at least ensure equal opportunity for all the students regardless of their economic status. But this should be followed by extending the course concerned , at least the undergraduate programme, by one year. The first year should be used to conduct remedial and bridge courses to bring all the students to come up to a defined standard, including discipline, aptitude, motivation for putting in hours of long hard work etc.
Those who do not measure up should be asked to leave. This arrangement, while giving equal chance to every student will also ensure that only those who can cope with the rigours of a medical education will continue.
Raghavan

No government has done enough to solve the Assam-Mizoram border dispute. Boundary disputes between Mizoram and Assam are not new. The two sides have argued where exactly the line falls on a 193-square-mile strip of land since the 1980s, when Mizoram and three other Indian states were carved out of Assam, a sprawling state that borders Bhutan and Bangladesh. Had the governments shown their resolve to solve the dispute, things would have not gone so volatile. Still there is time for the governments concerned to wake from their slumber.
Girish

Congress party is not that weak as it appears to be. It still has its core base intact to a great extent and it just needs a charismatic leader to uplift the party from ashes. But the problem is that neither the “crown prince” is himself ready to lead the party from the front nor is he allowing to let anyone else become the commander. The party has always risen from heavy political defeats in the past when it was written off (after defeats in 1977, 1989, 1998, 1999 etc.). But it has always risen from ashes like Phonics only because of its strong and foresighted leadership which is missing today. Now, the party has become a private limited company sort of thing and its leadership is like later Mughals. Mughal Emperor Shah Alam’s empire was from Delhi to Palam. Similarly the Congress Empire ranges from 10 Janpath (Sonia Gandhi’s official home) to Rahul Gandhi's residence. Yes, the party is in power in many states like MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Punjab etc. but Gandhi family has little or no control on regional satraps. To cap it all, Congress just needs a leader who is full time politician and who doesn't personally hates Modi and is willing to learn from Modi to defeat Modi.
Rajesh Kumar

True sir. Congress High command should realise that while Gandhi family brings unity and stability to the party and always has chance to form government, the regional heads by Dreaming family and useless children promotion policy brings great losses to party. Minus these children promotion business in MP, Rajasthan, Assam, UP etc Congress would have easily crossed 100 seats in last parliamentary elections and would have been ruling in MP, Assam etc.
Good Gandhi family has now realised the fault lines and started repairing from Punjab.
C N Singh

The film industry in India is known to have produced some of the finest talents but the arrest of businessman Raj Kundra in a case relating to the alleged production of adult films, has come as a shock. While Kundra has denied any wrongdoing, a thorough investigation is required. Several controversies like the drug pedalling and the charge of the casting couch in the film industry have come to fore quite often, Of late, Bollywood has seen a spate of suicides, the most notable among them being of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The probe should not only determine culpability in all the cases but also suggest reforms, before it is too late, to keep the glory of the cineworld intact.
Anil Khanna

In a lighter vein - While transparency is certainly good for the country, it produces interesting situations as illustrated in the case cited. A husband - wife relation, held pious, is now bound by the Act where officially, one cannot ask for information about the spouse, as they are "third party" to each other. Who says there cannot be someone in between husband and wife? Each of them have information which is "private" to other person. In summary, the Act which brings about openness in the society adds to privacy between the couple.
Swati