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9 P.M. should have been an odd time for accountants to sit through a heavy lecture on the historical development of law, but that's what happened when Mr Arun Jaitley engaged about 200 of them at the end of a seminar on transfer pricing. The Minister's special address on `Meeting public expectations through legislative changes' had nothing to do with the theme of the evening's deliberations on international deals, arm's length, and so on.

Yet, coming as it did when there was a growing apprehension among veteran accountants that the self-regulatory powers of the Institute could be superseded by newer legislative creatures to meet `public expectations' in the wake of perceived `failure' of global accounting bodies, the prospect was high that the minister would dwell on the fears and `reaffirm' his faith in the autonomy of the ICAI. But Mr Jaitley is too suave to get tangled in such commitments.

He is a minister in a hurry, apparently gobbling up laws for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That would be the only way to flush about 1,300 unwanted statutes off the books. We are an over-legislated society and whenever there is a problem, we look for a legislative solution, he lamented. More dangerously, the fear of law is on the decline, he said; and, in at least one oblique reference to the local practices among professionals, he asked: If you were to advise a client in a foreign country, would you suggest he concealed his income?

As one of the articulate spokespersons of the government, Mr Jaitley would have spoken from his experience when he said that spin-doctoring is the art of managing or regulating public expectations, something very difficult in a democracy. The expectation gap, however, could assume chasmic proportions when those who practise this fine art tend to overdo.

A line that Mr Jaitley was not tired of repeating was that the public has a broad sense of fairness. For the auditing tribe that positions itself as the sole dispenser of opinion on fairness, this should have come as a surprise. And, for all the Modi's men and the likes of Katiyar, this could justify the pursuit of `public' interest.

hindubusinessline@hotmail.com

D. Murali

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