Sour comments on lawyers – DDT bouquet and brickbats
DDT should show restraint while commenting about lawyers and doctors. While making the nearly 600 editions of DDT, we have received virulent attacks and embarrassingly high approbation, both of which we take stoically and usually don't report; but yesterday’s DDT evoked two different reactions which DDT would like to share with the netizens.
In response to DDT’s remarks on lawyers, an eminent lawyer friend wrote in,
Refer to your remarks on doctors and advocates in today's DDT, wherein you have raised a general question as to who evade the taxes most between lawyers and doctors and have answered that it is almost axiomatic that these two professionals are the most blatant evaders of tax and between the two, doctors are the worse offenders. Not commenting as to whether these two professions warrant imposition of service tax or not, I strongly condemn your blatant criticism thrown in general against two esteemed professions. with no service tax imposed on them till date, I am surprised as to what tax did you mean by your remark, that they had evaded? Is it Income tax? If so, without any sort of statistics on hand how can you throw such a defamatory remark, that too in your esteemed column? I feel you should withdraw the comments immediately.
The same DDT had some remarks on taxing God-men,
God-men do provide the service of mental peace and perhaps they should be taxed and maybe Sai Baba will become the biggest Service Tax assessee. Just imagine a Superintendent summoning Sai Baba and recording a statement from him. The Statement may turn into ashes before the Show Cause Notice is issued.
An eminent consultant wrote in response to this,
I loved your flight of fancy on saibaba and the hapless Superintendent!
I replied to her,
Just now I got a mail from an advocate blasting me for my irresponsible comments on lawyers and doctors. Before I could recover from the blast, Baba seems to have sent me your message.