Sleepless Nights, a gift to Money Launderers

When the Hon. PM announce the demonetization of 1000 Rupees and 500 Rupees notes the entire country was shocked, and most importantly those people who are stock piling black money had a sleepless night.

“If we have to nab a thief, there is not logic of informing the thief about the plan.”

In the announcement, Hon. PM said that the step to demonetize those notes is to fight terror funding, black money and fake notes.

The article will show an aspect where the demonetization will help in fighting money laundering.

Money laundering is a process of converting a black money/illegal money into white money. Black money or illegal money means the money which a person acquired through illegal means.

Here we are going to discuss about how the black or illegal money is converted into white money.

First of all, a person (a criminal or a politician or a bureaucrat or a business man) earns black money through different illegal ways like extortion, bribery, corruption, smuggling, selling drugs etc. and he collects all those money as one.

Then the he will start dividing the money into smaller denominations.

Example,

If he earns 1 Crore Rupees, he will divide the amount as

10 Lakhs + 15 Lakhs + 5 Lakhs + 20 Lakhs + 2 Lakhs + 7 Lakhs + 1 Lakh + 17 Lakhs + 13 Lakhs + 6 Lakhs + 4 Lakhs

Now he will start using this smaller amounts into different ways like buying investing in share markets, buying jewelries, buying apartments, opening fixed deposit account in bank etc. In the process, he will start investing the black money into market.

The process of investing the black money into the market is known as Placement.

After the step of placement, he will start Layering.

In this step, he will take back his money from a unit in which he invests and he will again invest the amount into some other unit. Likewise, all the investments will be taken back to invest in some other units again.

So, he will make layers of investments one over another by his black money.

After years of layering he will at last start disinvesting his money from all the units, this step is called Integration. When he integrates the whole of 1 crore Rupees which he earns from illegal activities, the money will become a white money because the money has layers of legal sources and he can deposit the whole amount in the bank.

The policy of demonetization will stop the money launderers in the first step that is placement. He will not be able to invest his money in any units and demonetization compels him to go directly to bank for the deposit. Here the intelligence agency will be alerted and he will be book immediately, as the source of the money is not legal.

We all know that politicians corrupt, bureaucrats take bribes and anti-national elements use extortion, drug mafia, smuggling of illegal things as a mode to franchise their units. All these malpractices will be stopped by the demonetization.

The step creates a panic to common people of India and also it creates an economic standstill for a moment in the country, but those effects won’t last long. So better not to get panicked, no one will lose even a single penny he/she saves and the economic activities will be stabilized very soon.

It is true that demonetization will help in curbing corruption and other illegal trade practices. So, we need to cooperate our government in fighting black money, terror funding and fake notes to shape a brighter future.

“If we have to gain something great in the near future, we have to sacrifice something now.”

Change for a Common Interest - Uniform Civil Code

India is a country of vast diversity, having people with different race, religion and language, and it is marching towards forming a strong nation. It is also accepted that India is a nation in making, and being a nation in making we have to look for the common interest all the time.

As an example, we had various indirect taxes which was a headache for the tax payers, but now we have come up with GST which is clubbing all the indirect taxes and we have many other examples where we had opted for the thing which is common for all. Likewise, we need to club all the personal laws which are in force to bring out a common civil code for all.

Our Constitution makers also felt the need for the uniformity in personal laws, so they kept the provision of Uniform Civil Code as a part of Directive Principle of State Policy in Article 44.

Need for a Common Civil Code

There are many laws regarding marriage, divorce and inheritance which are in force in India, and they are used according to the religion of the parties. Some of the examples are Hindu Marriage Act 1955, Special Marriage Act 1954, Dowry Prohibition(Amendment) Act 1984, Domestic Violence Act 2005, Hindu Succession Act 1956 and various other inheritance norms based on different religion. All these laws and norm are enforced till today, but there are many loopholes and there are also many areas which are not covered like Triple talaq, polygamy in Muslim, depriving of property right to Hindu Women etc.

According to the existing laws Christians and Muslim women are comparatively far better than Hindu women, because both for Christian and Muslim have the full-fledged right to own property but the Hindu women has no right to own property.

There is also a problem of triple talaq and polygamy in Muslim community, which directly challenges the dignity of any Muslim wife. This is a major element which majority of the Muslim women want to eliminate from the existing Muslim Personal Law.

In order to bridge the difference in marriage, divorce and inheritance laws of different religions and also to address the discrimination faced by women in such cases we need a Common Civil Code to minimize the cases in a long-term perspective, instead of amending the existing laws one by one.

Calls for the Common Civil Code

The call for a Uniform Civil Code started right from the very early stage of Independent India. Leaders like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru were of the view that being a secular country India needed a Uniform Civil Code, but they could not enact the law because of heavy opposition from seniors like Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Vallabhbhai Patel, and also from many sections of the then Indian society.

Supreme Court ordered the government to enact the bill since Shah Bano case in 1985. Before the Shah Bano case, Supreme Court had tried two similar cases under Criminal Code. Since then Supreme Court had reminded the Government about the need for a Common Civil Code on several instances.

Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan and several other Muslim Women Social Activists are calling for a codified Muslim Family law. In one of the study done by BMMA in 10 states of the country out of 4710 Muslim women, 92.1% of the women want total ban on oral/unilateral divorce (Triple Talaq) and 91.7% of the women are opposed to polygamy.

Many right wing organisations are also supporting the Uniform Civil Code with some ulterior motives. They are even encouraging people, through many mediums, to support Uniform Civil Code.

Dead set against

All India Muslim Personal Law Board is spearheading the movement against Uniform Civil Code and they got the support from many regional and national parties like CPI(M), AITC, BSP and AIMIM. They are also organizing a signature campaign against it.

According to them Uniform Civil Code will infringe the Sharia- the Islamic jurisprudence based on Quranic teaching. They also stated that there is no need for addition or deletion on the existing law regarding marriage, divorce and inheritance, as the Sharia itself is total and complete.

And also, many experts are of the view that the motive behind the proposal of Uniform Civil Code is to curtail the Muslim Laws in the country and to establish a Hindutva based law throughout the 

country.

Way Out

The cases of discrimination faced by women in a marriage institution is common to all the religions and we need a solution to minimize the number of such cases for the greater interest of our country.

It is the government who has to act first, so the government has asked the opinion of the Law Commission to examine all aspects pertaining to Uniform Civil Code. And on the other hand, the union government should also bring all the opposition parties under confidence and draft the bill without any biases on religious line.

Many constitutional experts and legal experts are calling for a Uniform Civil Code to save the dignity of women and also, to show the genuineness of our Secular Stand.

Government should work honestly to serve the needs of the country and people should also understand the need for change to serve our collective interest.