I have wanted to write this post for a very long time but kept putting it off for some good reason best known to the subconscious. However, the attack on e-commerce by the tax-man was the spark that ignited this story. As it is normally the case, some law that was written in goodness-knows-which-generation is going to be used to harass a business enterprise. It doesn’t matter that our PM Modi is racking up air miles in convincing the world outside and within India on a red carpet welcome to capital and services but alas, did someone forget to tell that to the tax man?
So, it all started when I on my daily cramming of articles on Startup Logic read this article on the application of outdated laws to new age business models to a global behemoth like Amazon. The clash has led to a cancellation of licenses for Amazon’s warehouse in Karnataka in addition to the umpteen headaches from the tax authorities and the obvious loss of face. This doesn’t even count the numerous transactions that will be delayed or cancelled due to the diktat.
So while each government has a Finance Ministry which oversees the balancing of the budget, do they have an Economic Impact Unit that offers a perspective on the economic impact of shutting or opening a business unit? Are the tax authorities asked to give an assessment on the positive and negative impacts of their actions and the bigger affect that their actions can have on the country’s image? Or are they just allowed to march in and shut a unit down all in the hope of sweating out a few people and greasing their own dirty palms?It is high time that the majority government passes a law that mandates the ‘rewriting’ of laws that are over 25 years old. There are just too many cases today where the outdated laws of pre-independence (and some that even pre-dated to the birth of my great-great-grandfather) are being used to harass entrepreneurs, law abiding citizens and even party revelers from enjoying their ‘independence’.
The reason I choose 25 years is because it provides a balance between the generational change in India with the rapid change in the pace of technology and society. Unfortunately our legal system has passed its expiry date on both accounts and it is time for a radical change through the rewriting of this system for the youth of today to believe in the legal system and to agree to follow it. To know how deep the malaise of outdated laws affect our ‘independence’ and outdate reality, just read this article from India Today. While the article only touches the tip of the ice-berg it should have further gone on to explain how the Indian Partnership Act was passed in 1932 and was last amended in 1983!Why amend such old laws, they don’t change the intent of the law and neither do they capture the changes in the applicability of the law (can you imagine what a partnership meant in 1932 or even in 1983 versus what it means today?) for that matter imagine what was the intention when the Press and Registration of Books Act of 1867 was written… electricity was a privilege then and we are in the age of the e-book!
These laws aren’t just affecting our entrepreneurs, imagine what intention the Indian Divorce Act of 1869 wanted to achieve versus the reality today? What about the Indian Evidence Act of 1872! I don’t even want to read what those acts say except knowing that their entire intention is defeated when the intent with which an act was written is no longer a reality my generation or even the generation after me can imagine.There are umpteen number of my friends, family and brother and sisters of my country that are breaking their heads and their spirit against the colonial laws created by the British curb Indians and in a way we are still enslaved to the draconian laws 68 years after our Independence. So Mr. Prime Minister before we attract billions, trillions and gazillions from China to Timbuktu… let’s clean up our judicial system and restore its faith and stature in the eyes of our generation.
A list of laws & acts governing us is available here
