Taxation - Is Politics a Profession or Occupation?
NEARLY forty years ago in 1975, the Supreme Court was called upon to decide the issue as to whether politics is a profession or occupation.
The respondent was PVG Raju a rich Maharajah practicing the politics of socialism, spending lavishly for furthering his party's popularity and the prospects of his fellow candidates at the elections to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly.
The Supreme Court had to examine whether politics of the socialist brand or otherwise is a profession or occupation.
The Supreme Court observed,
There can hardly be any doubt that it is either, or both.
Harold Laski treated politics as a science and wrote his well-known book on the Grammar of Politics, but the art of politics at a practical level has also been the subject of comment and has been praised and denounced on the basis that it is a profession.
To Gandhiji it is sacred as religion.
In Lincoln it rises to noble heights of statesmanship.
Lenin, Nehru and a galaxy of other great visionaries and makers and moulders of the modern world have dedicated themselves to politics as a profession.
Of course in its vulgar and vicious manifestations, this occupation has been regarded by literary giants like Dr. Johnson as the last refuge of a scoundrel'.
Robert Louis Stevenson has used barbed words: 'Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary (Familiar studies of Men and Books, 'Yoshida- Torajiro ').
George Bernard Shaw uses stinging language in Major Barbara: 'He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career'.
It is thus clear, without reference to the wealth of case-law relied on by the High Court, that politics has been a profession and, indeed, under modern conditions in India, perhaps the most popular and uninhibited occupation-with its perils, of course.
The Supreme Court held: Being a politically important man with plenty of money and vitally interested in boosting his Party's standing in the State, he donated liberally for candidates set up by the party. In this view s. 5(j) of the Expenditure Tax Act, 1957applies to these donations which earn exemption from the expenditure tax.
Incidentally PVG Raju, the respondent in this case was the father of the present Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju.
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