(This story originally appeared in on Mar 29, 2017)

NEW DELHI: The debate on the Finance Bill , 2017, in the Rajya Sabha saw the Opposition expressing apprehensions about the government gradually moving towards making Aadhaar compulsory, corporate funding of elections and giving sweeping powers to income-tax authorities to search and survey. The fears were allayed by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in his reply.The Opposition moved five major amendments, relating to these issues, which were passed by division of votes as the Treasury Benches are in a minority in the Upper House. However, being a money bill, these amendments are not binding and the government will have the final say. The Bill will now be returned to the Lok Sabha.Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal interrupted Jaitley during his reply and sought clarifications on the powers being given to the income-tax authorities and electoral funding by corporate houses. Jaitley began his reply by taking a dig at Sibal. “Some of the claims made by him about the government are highly exaggerated.These are based on a particular analysis that Kapil Sibal gave. He compared the present situation to the Emergency. It is quite fashionable to do that particularly by those who are otherwise supporters of Emergency.” He also termed as an “erroneous hypothesis” the claim made by Sibal that most people in the country are tax compliant.Jaitley clarified that Section 132 of the Finance Bill only states that a “satisfaction note” should be prepared before search and seizure. He maintained that the identity of the informer has to be protected and cannot be revealed and wondered why the opposition was making it a human rights issue.Chidambaram countered this, saying since the Income Tax Act, 1961, reasons are given to the assessee when a raid is conducted. “Reasons will be given to the courts and the courts alone,” Jaitley assured the House. Not satisfied with this answer, Trinamool Congress staged a walkout. The finance minister also spoke on the issue of election funding and dismissed the charge that electoral bonds will favour the ruling party. He said suggestions were invited from all parties to make the process more trans-parent.Jaitley said previous attempts at cleaning up political funding have not yielded desired results. There are four ways of funding — through cheques (which Jaitley said hasn’t worked), small donations of `2,000, through online payments and electoral bonds. Jaitley underlined that the government is also trying to have fewer tribunals which would look into several disputes instead of one tribunal each for a dispute.On the issue of Aadhaar, Chidambaram said making it compulsory would lead to invasion of privacy. Some members cited the example of cricketer MS Dhoni’s Aadhaar number being made public and the inconvenience caused to him. “How will you protect the privacy of the bank account (once it is linked to Aadhaar). What is the guarantee that it will not be hacked?” Chidambaram asked.Jaitley underlined that firewalls should be strong enough. Just because there was apprehension that a firewall could be breached, it couldn’t be a ground for not linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and income-tax payments, he said.Chidambaram warned that even the US Pentagon was hacked. However, Jaitley tried to make light of the re-mark, saying it was hacked without Aadhaar being in use there. Chidambaram asked Jaitley not to caricature his question. “I share the concern that privacy has to be protected,” Jaitley said.