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22 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
proposes to continue for a year more, the additions made to the stamp duties and the court-fees sanctioned by the Bombay Finance Act II of 1932. Secondly, it increases the duty on the consumption of electricity. Thirdly, it increases the stamp duties in certain cities and urban areas on conveyances of immoveable property. Fourthly, it levies a tax on leases of immoveable property. Fifthly, it imposes a tax of 10 per cent, on the annual letting value of buildings in Bombay, Bombay Suburban District, and Ahmedabad City. And Sixthly, it imposes a sales tax not exceeding 6ΒΌ per cent. on three items, namely, motor spirit or lubricants, manufactured cloth, and silk yarn. As I said, I do not propose to go into the details of these proposals of taxation. All that I am going to do now is to offer, in a summary way, certain criticisms which occur to me on general principles.
Now with regard to the continuation of stamp and court fees, I would like to remind the Honourable the Finance Minister that this was a tax which, if my memory serves me aright, has always been objected to by Congressmen in the old Legislative Council. Sir, I do not remember a single Budget Session, when Congressmen did not turn the Budget Session into a kind of hardy annual between the Finance Members on the one hand and the Congressmen on the other. A tax which was fought tooth and nail every year, and where Congressmen themselves were not prepared to give this tax a perpetual lease of life should have now been thought by Congress Ministers themselves as a tax which should be continued ad infinitum, year by year is, to say the least, a bit of the same policy which Congressmen have been following now that they have got office, namely, that the things which were then bad are now good, because they are run by Congressmen. Very many examples could be cited of that kind of turn of mind. We know Congressmen who use to fight tooth and nail because the Executive was not separated from the Judiciary. They thought that was a most oppressive system and we have now the same Congressmen supporting that that was the most ideal system. I will not say anything more than that, but I should certainly like to point out that this is certainly contrary to the declared faith of all Congressmen.
Coming to the duty on electricity, this is, to my mind, in principle, a bad tax. I am one of those who believe that the use of electricity ought to be encouraged more and more, because in the absence of electricity what people would do would be to burn kerosene oil which causes smoke which is injurious to health and that ought to be stopped in the best way possible. The only way to discourage the consumption of kerosene oil would be to make electricity as cheap as one can possibly make it. And therefore my submission is that, on general principles, this is a bad duty. My second comment on this part of the taxation proposal is that it is a tax which is badly distributed. One of the most extraordinary things that one notices about this electricity tax is that there is no increase in the tax on the energy used by cinemas and theatres. Sir, I should have thought that if there was any person or any individual tax, it was certainly the cinema and the