BETTER NOT RUSH FOR REWARDS ON BENAMI ASSETS
Any person rushing to seek reward under the new benami transaction informant scheme announced on June 1 may have to go round-andround to get the money and he may rather land up in jail instead of putting the benami property beneficiary in the dock.
The fine print of the scheme shows the farce of scaring away anyone coming forward to help the authorities nab those dealing in the benami transactions as it says one gets the reward only on giving "specific information." The officials say they made certain provisions as they learnt by burning fingers in a number of benami cases in the past when they were not able to prosecute the tax dodgers because the information furnished was either vague or challenged by the legal eagles in courts.
The new scheme, therefore, requires that the informant has to not only provide "verifiable particulars of the benami property; name and address of the person in whose name the property has been acquired; and credible basis, including supporting evidence, for the information that the property was actually benami property," but also provide assistance to the tax sleuths in their investigation to seize the property. All this with a promise of maintaining secrecy of the identity of the informant that becomes public if he has to move around to assist the investigation.
Any enthusiastic informant even runs the risk of jail up to five years and made out to pay 10% of the value of the property he alleged to be "benami" as he may be hauled up under the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016 that says "persons who furnish false information to authorities under the Benami Act are prosecutable and may be imprisoned up to five years, besides being liable to pay fine up to 10 per cent of fair market value of benami property." Contrast this with a jail up to seven years for the culprit caught doing benami deals.
The reward comes in two stages. The interim reward of 1% of the benami property''s value with a ceiling of Rs 10 lakh is to be given within four months and the final award @5% of the property''s fair market value within six months of the final confiscation which will be so if two years have lapsed from the date of confiscation with no pending legal challenge. The informant can do little to ensure no legal challenge is pending to claim the final award.