PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 865
(47)
ESTATE DUTY BILL, 1953
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay) : Mr. Chairman, I would just like to make a few observations on the measure that is placed by the Finance Minister before this House. I am supporting the measure; at the same time I think that there are certain points which require to be elucidated. I should have thought that the very first thing in the collection of an estate duty is to know what the amount of the estate is which a deceased person has left. So far as this measure is concerned, I have not as yet been able to find out how the authorities which have been created under this Act are going to find out what estate a deceased person has left. Referring to section 4 of the Bill, it merely lays down three authorities : the Board, the Controllers of Estate Duty, and the Valuers. Speaking for myself, I should think that it would be a matter of the greatest difficulty for the authorities who are created to administer this measure to know what a person has left.
In the first place, it would be very difficult for them to know who is dead and when he is dead. In this country, it has been a long, long complaint that we have not yet a measure which would compulsorily require a person to report that a child is born to him either male or female or that a certain person in his family is dead, to the Municipal authorities or to the village authorities. He may, if he liked. In the villages, it is the village officer of lowest grade on whom the duty is placed of going and reporting to the village patel that a child is born to a certain person in the village. He may do so, or he may not do so, he may do so after a long time. In the municipality—I am speaking of the Bombay Municipality which is, I think, one of the biggest municipalities—every one knows that there is hardly any compulsion on anybody to go and report to the
- P. D., Vol. 4B. (Council of States), 18th September 53, pp. 2805-15.