A Public Interest Litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court alleging 5 to 10 percent people in India are living like “Emperor of Emperors” and the rest are living like economic refugees due to unequal distribution of wealth.
Filed by IITian, the plea alleges our social picture is not so good as top 1% of Indian population has almost 40% of wealth of India and the top 10% has almost 70% of wealth of India. The petitioner stated that according to reputed economist Thomas Piketty, the concentration of wealth in 1% in India has increased from 6% to 22% from mid-1980s to mid-2020s.
“Wealth inequalities have increased substantially in last 35 years. For instance, the number of cars in India has increased from 30,000 to 30,00,000 even as there has been no dent been made on malnutrition, poverty and hunger. Those who already have every thing are getting more and more and the life of the common man is becoming gloomy which is dangerous for democracy,” it said.
It said that the total wealth of India is 12 trillion dollars. The wealth in top 1% of India is 5 trillion dollars. Even if the wealth in top 1% is taxed at an average rate of 2% it will yield 100 billion dollars that is Rs 7.5 lakh crore which could improve hunger, malnutrition, education, healthcare, housing, transportation for 1 billion poor and very poor Indians.
Hence, the petitioner has proposed that weath tax, inheritance tax and gift tax be introduced to tax the top 1% of Indian population which has around 5 trillion dollars of wealth. These taxes should be progressive so that the top 0.1-0.2%% pays higher rate of taxes than the rest of the 1% of population. The goal of these taxes is as much to collect revenues to reduce poverty as also to reduce wealth in top 1% of population of India. India is a socialist nation, he said.
“That the disparity in the society is toggling between + Infinity to – Infinity. All citizens must have some homogeneity in earning livelihood and material resources must not concentrate in a few hands to the detriment of the common people in stark violation of Articles 38 and 39 of the Constitution of India,” read the plea.
The plea has been filed by a chemical engineer from IIT through Advocate-on-Record Arup Banerjee. The matter is listed for hearing on April 25, Monday, before the bench of Justices Vineet Saran & J.K. Maheshwari.