Former Director- CBI
While drafting a stringent Lok Pal Bill is a good idea, this alone cannot help us fight the cancer of corruption. A lot more needs to be done.
Social activist Anna Hazare has rightly raised a storm against corruption which has become wide spread and shows no sign of abating. The Union Government has agreed to his demand of taking on board his representatives for the drafting of a strong Lok Pal Bill. In fact, both sides have legal luminaries as members. As the experience of Bills drafted by the Government shows, they leave sufficient loopholes for the guilty to escape the law, in the name of fair play, human rights and equity, as if victims do not have any of these rights.
A brief needs to be given to the members of the drafting committee by civil society, based on its concerns and suggestions, about the methodology of fighting corruption and its demands. Simply trusting the panel members nominated by Anna Hazare to come up with their own prescription of how to fight corruption will not do.
Seeing corruption trials in courts is entirely a different matter from eradicating it. Even the adoption of the Lok Pal Bill by Parliament will not solve the problem of corruption. That will be possible only when Government provides the wherewithal for fighting corruption, like increasing the strength of the judiciary and the investigating agency, seizing illegal assets during the investigation itself and enhancing the budget and manpower for achieving this goal. All this has to be part of the package. Otherwise, the Lok Pal Bill will prove to be just like the preamble to our Constitution or the Right to Education Act which is meaningless without teachers and in the absence of schools.
Indeed a stage has come where the Government is reluctant to act against the corrupt or corruption, as can be seen from the Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the 2G Spectrum scam or the Adarsh Housing and CWG scandals. Let not the institution of Lok Pal become another toothless tiger. When the Lok Ayukta of Delhi sent a report against a Minister, instead of acting on the basis of his findings, the Delhi Government is thinking of having a second look at the law.
The possession of assets beyond known means of income is a criminal offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The law should be changed to put the onus on the accused to prove that whatever he or
she possesses or owns has been honestly acquired. There have hardly been any cases, except in Bihar and in a couple of other States, where illegally acquired assets have been seized by the Government. The relevant investigating agencies should be authorised to seize all illegally acquired property on the filing of chargesheet against the accused.
The strength of the criminal justice system should be increased so that no case takes more than six months, as against the present 10 to 30 years, to decide in any court of law. Only a single appeal should be allowed instead of layer after layer of appeals.
Under the Prevention of Corruption Act, both the giver and receiver of bribes are guilty of committing a crime. This is a skewed law, because if both are guilty, then who will give evidence? Anti-corruption agencies around the world freely lay traps with the help of decoys posing as bribe-givers to catch corrupt officials and politicians red-handed. The law has to be changed so that only the beneficiary of illegal gratification is charged with committing a crime. It is common sense that nobody willingly bribes, which most often is extorted.
Very often when huge assets are discovered, the case is allowed to linger on. We are told that the law will take its course. But this does not happen for 10 to 20 years because the judiciary has not been strengthened either with infrastructure or human resource to deliver fair and prompt justice, in say six months.
At present, before even starting any inquiry against officials of the rank of joint secretary and above, the permission of the Government is required. This is apart from the sanction to prosecute that is required after completing investigation in a case of corruption. In this manner, we have created two classes of Government employees — the twice-born and the lesser beings. As a result, corrupt senior bureaucrats are provided with double protection and immunity from the law.
The Government can, if it so decides, exercise its right of denying or withdrawing the statutory sanction to prosecute public servants despite the evidence gathered against them by the investigating agency. This could prove to be one of the sticking points while drafting the Lok Pal Bill as the Government would be loath to give up its much-abused power to block an investigation and subsequent prosecution.
Corruption is not a part of the duty of any Government servant and as much has been said more than once by the Supreme Court. But this has had no effect on the Government which remains determined not to give
up its power to protect bureaucrats accused of corruption. The Telecommunication Minister is right when he says that the adoption of the Lok Pal Bill by Parliament will not end corruption. This is because of the simple reason that unless other laws, which are tilted in favour of the corrupt and dishonest, are suitably amended or deleted and the judiciary strengthened to decide cases within six months to one year. In the absence of such matching action, the Lok Pal Bill will be a non-starter.
Apart from amending laws and strengthening the criminal justice system, sting operations should be legalised both for the public and media so that they can expose corruption. A percentage of the illegal assets acquired by corrupt public servants, say a minimum of 50 per cent, should be given as a reward to those who expose them. These steps may appear draconian, but serious diseases require surgical intervention.
The outrage over mounting corruption in every sphere of public life in India in not without reason. Indians are no longer willing to see their country being labelled as one of the most corrupt in the world. Nor are they willing to pay the high cost of corruption — both literally and metaphorically. Survey after survey has shown India ranks extremely low on all indices of integrity and probity in public life. Transparency International ranks India at the 87th place with an integrity score of 33 out of 100. The Political & Economic Risk
Consultancy Ltd of Hongkong has rated India at 8.67 on a scale of zero to 10, with the high end being the worst case of corruption scenario, just ahead of the Philippines (8.9 points), Indonesia (9.25 points)
and Cambodia (9.27 points).
A severe crackdown is more than overdue. The Government has to take this issue seriously. Let it demonstrate its commitment by enhancing the minimum punishment for corruption to life sentence with no
remission and the maximum to death penalty for looting the country and its citizens.