Author: Dr. Joginder Singh
Publication: Indian Currents
Date: June 30 - July 6, 2008
'Making hey while the sun shines' is an old
saying. But in the present climate of raging corruption in the country, not
only the powers-that-be make a lot of hey (or money) but are not hesitant
to distribute a part of it, to stay out of trouble. Assam's Education Minister
Ripon Bora has been arrested, along with his two associates by the Central
Bureau of Investigation, recently in Delhi while allegedly paying Rs. 10 lakhs
as bribe to an officer of the investigating agency.
Mr. Bora, a senior Minister, was a suspect
in a murder case that was being probed by the CBI on the direction of the
Gauhati High Court. The case pertained to the killing of tribal leader Daniel
Topno on September 27, 2000, who was a candidate during the 1996 Assembly
elections. Mr. Bora was his rival.
"The Minister had approached the officer,
probing the case, through a middleman for negotiating the outcome of the investigation,"
according to the CBI. The officer to be bribed made a complaint and a trap
was laid.
Before any legal action is taken, it is the
standard requirement in CBI to get a formal complaint from the affected party
or parties even if he or she happens to be a CBI Officer. This is the only
way to set the law in motion.
There can be two types of corruption cases.
One where the bribe is demanded by a public servant and the other where bribe
is offered to a public servant. In the case of a complaint where bribe is
demanded, the complainant is asked to get the currency notes treated with
a special powder and the serial number of notes are written down before the
bribe is paid. Witnesses are procured in advance and they are so positioned
when the transaction takes place that they can see the money being handed
over and overhear their conversation between the complainant and the bribe
taker. After the transaction is over, the bribe taker is arrested.
Where a bribe is being offered to a public
servant and he has informed the CBI, even then the witnesses are called to
witness the demand and passing of the money, so that when the case goes to
the court, they can depose what they have seen. To maintain its credibility,
CBI gets witnesses from those Government departments, which do not even have
a remote connection with the people involved in corruption cases. In fact,
the same witnesses are never used in other cases by the CBI. The advantage
of this approach is that no body can say that the same stock witnesses are
being produced in all cases of CBI.
Unfortunately, corruption in our country is
going up instead of coming down. As per the latest report of Transparency
International, India is the 72nd (Integrity Index) most corrupt country, in
integrity and honesty in public administration in the world. It scores 35
marks out of 100. Under our laws pertaining to corruption, only a public servant
can be guilty of corruption. Incidentally, MPs, MLAs and Ministers are also
public servant and the same laws are applied to them as to the Government
employees.
Ministerial corruption normally has been taking
the form of misuse of their position, for getting favours for themselves or
their family members or doing things for others for solid reasons and considerations.
This is probably the first case where instead of taking bribe the Minister
has been at the other end of offering bribes. In fact, Corruption in Public
Life has become so endemic, that people have become cynical whether the government
is serious about eliminating and giving good governance to the people. There
have been allegations against an Orissa Education Minister (denied by him)
that the State Board of Secondary Education officials manipulated his son's
marksheet. It is said that his son was allegedly given extra 124 marks in
the last high school certificate examinations.
Another case which was widely reported and
discussed is that of the Union Transport and Shipping Minister about whose
family's companies the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) wrote not one, but eight
letters, between November 2007 and February 2008, to the ministry of petroleum
and natural gas to expedite gas allocations to these companies.
According to Mr Baalu, the Minister, "Kings
Chemicals has been allotted about 10,000 cubic metre of gas by Gas Authority
of India Limited (GAIL). To rehabilitate the Kings Chemicals company, Kings
high power has approached GAIL; they have provid-ed 4.5 lakh cubic metre gas
to see that power is produced out of gas."
Another case which came up in Jharkhand High
Court was the alleged transfer of a Central Coalfields limited to the northeastern
coalfields, at the instance of a Union Minister, Subodh Kant Sahay, who has
been issued a notice by the High Court. The transfer has since been stayed.
A detailed implementation review (DIR) report
of the World Bank into the $76.4 million Orissa health system development
project (OHSDP), launched in 1998 and completed in 2006, said that a health
minister and some officials had taken Rs. 500,000 in bribes to give undue
favours to a particular firm. The Minister has since denied the allegations.
The State Government had earlier formed a three-member panel headed by the
Chief Secretary to probe the corruption charges after the report, which gives
details with documentary evidence about substandard construction works and
fraud in procurement of instruments and fittings for hospitals covered under
the project, was published.
In fact, the system has been ruined with no
will being shown by the Government to tackle the corrupt and dishonest. Recently,
Group of Ministers has rejected a proposal to do away with the need for government
approval to attach the property of tainted public servants to control corruption.
On the contrary, it has decided, that the
Investigating Officer must take the prior Government sanction even to move
the special judge for attachment of tainted property. The decision only represents
one of many attempts of the government to protect the corrupt and dishonest.
Even otherwise, there are lot of sanctions required to be taken. As per the
CVC Act, no investigation, or inquiry can be started against an officer of
the level of Joint Secretary or above, without the Government sanction. This
was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1997 but was again introduced as a
law.
Even after such a sanction has been received,
which itself is doubtful, then sanction is required to register a regular
case. Again for prosecution in the court of law, formal Government sanction
is legally binding. Even after it is done, the Government can always direct
the Investigating Agency to withdraw the case from the court, as was done
in the case of Captain Satish Sharma.
The exasperation of the nation on corruption
has been best expressed by a bench of Supreme Court who said: "Everyone
wants to loot this country. The only deterrent is to hang a few corrupt persons
from the lamp post…The law does not permit us to do it but otherwise
we would prefer to hang people like you from the lamp post". It is time
to remind our leaders, what Theodore Roosevelt said: "We cannot afford
to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently
to endure. Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to
efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right
to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity".
(The writer is former Director of CBI: Email:
jogindersinghfdips@hotmail.com)
