There is a popular
saying Power Corrupts and absolute Power Corrupts absolutely. The saying though
oft repeated is still relevant since it is able to bring out the simple but
pertinent view that the effectiveness of any functioning democracy can be
judged from the fact that how successfully it has been able to make Power
vested among elected representatives accountable relative to the basic tenant enshrined in the Constitution of India.
With this basic significance of accountability in mind in democratic setup let
us peep into historical narrative of Corruption after independence.
Democratic India
since its inception as to bear with corruption with first major Scandal known
as Mundhra Scam came in prominence during Nehru era itself with which the
erstwhile Finance Minister has to resign. Famous JP movement of seventies also
had Corruption as a prominent issue with Ms Indira Gandhi being famously
indicted by Allahabad High Court for wrongful electoral practices. Ex- PM
Rajeev Gandhi also has to face Bofors scandal as a hot political issue in late
eighties leading to his government’s eventual downfall in ensuing general
election though the allegation was never proved in a court of law. His successor
Mr Narashima Rao also had to face Harshad Mehta bribery scam and Jain Diary
case while in office leading to his government also loosing in next general
election leading to its eventual ouster. Similar allegations have been levied
in last sixty years on many state governments with some of them ousted also due
to the electoral heat the issue generated. The people of India have always thus
shown their angriness against politicians and parties who have been accused of
indulging in corruption and amazing wealth through loot of public resources by
defeating them in elections or by coming out in open in defiance. But still the
malice of corruption has not been uprooted with various parties alternating in
power while showing apathy or lack of much needed political will on issue when
they were in office. Thus the Indian Polity in general flayed in providing real
alternate to people of India
The present time is also again witnessing the
issue of Corruption hitting the limelight with series of scandal coming into
open especially in last two years. The major difference from earlier period is
the scale of corruption in terms of quantum of public resources allegedly being
appropriated in undesirable way for private gains with all past comparisons
paling in significance. Most prominent of all scandals has been 2G scandal in
telecom sector on which at present Joint Parliamentary Committee is looking
into the matter along with Supreme Court monitored investigation carried out by
Central Bureau of Investigation which has till date lead to resignation of two
Cabinet Ministers who have been telecom minister at one time or other during
the period of Investigation (2002 onwards) of scam. Similarly V.K Shunglu
Committee indicted Chairman of Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee Mr.
Kalmadi, who has since resigned, for the Commonwealth Games Scandal. The
attention of the people has also been garbed on the issue due to efforts made
by prominent civil society members led by Gandhian Anna Hazare for enactment of
Strong Lokpal Bill and awareness campaign ushered by them among the people of
the country on need of such kind of institutional mechanism to combat the
malice of corruption. There awareness campaign culminated in formation of Joint
Committee with civil society persons as its members. Though the Committee
failed to come out with a consensus draft of Lokpal Bill but still the constant
media attention both from electronic and print side on the deliberations in
Joint Committee as in someway succeeded in raising consciousness of the
citizens of India
Prominent
Corruption Scandals Summarized
As have been
pointed out earlier of late in India
2G
Scandal
As brought
out by Comptroller and Auditor General
(CAG) in his report, the 2G spectrum
scam involved the issue of 122 licenses of the 2G spectrum in 2008 to 85
companies including many new telecom companies with little or no experience in
the telecom sector at a price set in the year 2001. The scam involved allegations
regarding the under pricing of the 2G spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications
which resulted in a heavy loss to the exchequer and the arbitrary application
of First Come First Serve Policy followed in the spectrum allocation process to
favor particular companies by changing deadlines for application in opaque
manner. The issue came to light after the auction of airwaves for 3G services which amounted
to 
67,719 crore (US$15.1 billion) to the exchequer. Report of
the CAG based on the money collected from 3G licenses estimated that the loss
to the exchequer due to under pricing of the 2G spectrum was 176,379 crore (US$39.33 billion).
67,719 crore (US$15.1 billion) to the exchequer. Report of
the CAG based on the money collected from 3G licenses estimated that the loss
to the exchequer due to under pricing of the 2G spectrum was 176,379 crore (US$39.33 billion).
Krishna-Godavari-D6
Gas Basin
CAG in its draft
report on Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) in Oil and Gas Field has indicted
the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MOP&NG) of Union of India of
providing “huge” and “undue benefit” to Reliance Industries Ltd
(RIL) and for allowing “irregularities and bending rules” to “oblige”
RIL in the Krishna Godavari basin gas fields, leading to a massive and as yet “unquantifiable”
loss to the national exchequer. In its 193-page Draft Report on PSCs in the oil
and gas field, the CAG has laid bare the close nexus between RIL and the bureaucrats working in the Petroleum
Ministry as well as in Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). This bending
of rules in arbitrary way has allowed RIL to retain its entire offshore
acreage, rather than surrendering those areas where it has not found oil or gas
so that the government could invite fresh bids from other companies. The CAG
report also noted that former Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH)
permitted Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) to inflate its development costs on
extracting the gas in the D6 block of the KG basin (KG-D6) from USD $2.47
billion to a huge USD $ 8.84 billion which has reduced government's share of
profit in the contract. It has earlier been alleged that an Empowered Group of
Ministers (EGoM) had allowed Reliance Industries Ltd to sell per unit of the
gas at a price of INR Rs. 4.20 even as the government companies were selling
the same for just INR Rs. 1.20. After the CAG report, the high-level Ashok
Chawla Committee had criticized the system of Production Sharing Contracts
(PSC) like the one Reliance Industries Ltd signed for the gas-rich KG-D6 block,
saying that these contracts are designed to benefit private players at the
Government's expense. The structure and functioning of the DGH also came in for
particular scrutiny of the Committee, which asked the government to shut what
it called the revolving door
that allowed oil industry executives to work at the DGH on deputation and go
back to their firms thus compromising much needed independence of Independent
Regulatory Commission. On the 1st of
July, 2011, the CBI in a separate probe in the alleged scam has registered a
case against former chief of Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, V K Sibal and
seven others for allegedly favoring private firms like RIL in carrying out
seismic exploration of oil and gas along Indian coasts, further boosting the
case for some wrongdoing.
Commonwealth
Games Scandal
The scandal is multifaceted in
nature involving numerous government agencies working at different layers of Delhi Delhi
Iron-ore illegal Mining in Karnataka
Rising global iron-ore prices
made Iron-Mining business really lucrative and brought into focus the iron ore
rich Bellary
region of Karnataka.
As per the report brought out by Karnataka Lokayukt, this iron ore is alleged
to have been illegally mined after paying a minuscule royalty to the
government. The major irregularities involve mines in Bellary, including those
of Obulapuram Mining Company owned by G. Karunakara Reddy and G. Janardhana Reddy who are ministers in the Government of Karnataka.
Lokayukta report on illegal-mining in Bellary
A report
prepared by the LokAyukta uncovered major violations and systemic corruption in mining in Bellary, including
encroachment of forest land, massive underpayment of state mining royalties and
systematic starvation of government mining entities. Justice N. Santosh Hegde resigned from the Lokayukta
position on 23 June 2010 citing inability to be effective in his
anti-corruption mandate owing to a non-cooperative Government of Karnataka, which on
persuasion he withdraw later. The report brought out collusion
of officials and politicians in permitting illegal mining in Bellary Bellary
Aadharsh Society Scandal
In 2010 media with utilization
of provisions of Right to Information Act, 2005 brought to public awareness the
alleged violations of rules at various phases of construction in the Aadharsh
Society. Serious questions were raised
on the manner in which apartments in the building were allocated to
bureaucrats, politicians and army personnel who had nothing to do with Kargil War
causalities in whose name the building was originally planned and the
inappropriate way in which clearances were obtained for the construction of the
building of the Adarsh Society. The Adarsh society high-rise was constructed in
the Colaba
locality of Mumbai,
which is considered to be a sensitive coastal area by Defence forces and houses
various Indian Defense establishments' buildings. The society is also alleged
to have violated the Ministry of Environment rules. Activists like Medha Patkar
had been trying to uncover the problems since at least 2004. The expose had led
to resignation of the then Chief Minister, Ashok Chavan.
Fertile
grounds for emergence of situation where corruption seems ubiquitous
On review of
various scandals and scam and deeper insight in to the issue it's pertinent
that the general shallow understanding that Corruption is just bribe-taking and
lack of morality in person doesn't seems to be the case. Rather, corruption can
properly be understood as any instance in which a person in public office takes
a decision, due to any factors which goes against impartial public interest. Thus
various scams and scandals surveyed above have at there roots general fallacy
in institutional mechanism in place to tackle corruption, wrong choice of
policy framework which makes corruption inevitable in someway and various nexus
working presently which fructify corruption by aligning of vested interests. In
such situation both political and administrative corruption breeds and feeds
with impunity.
Institutional
mechanisms in place like Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI), Departmental level Vigilance Committee etc, to combat corruption has degraded due to basic
structural deficiencies to a level, where both the person who is bribing to
seek undue favors and out of the turn treatment and the public servant who is
receiving bribes, found them at ease since there doesn't seems to be any reason
for them to believe that they will be caught while transacting exchange of
money for the purpose. Even in few cases where they are caught due to special
efforts of persons manning anti-corruption or Vigilance departments they are
confident of impunity as in most of the case the person is either let off after
departmental enquiry by just reprimanding him or punishment is at best in nature
of slap on the wrist. If in rare case it's decided to launch prosecution the
permission of government has to be sought in case the officer is working at
level of Additional Secretary and above thus seriously undermining the
independence of anti-corruption mechanism as a whole. Though on paper, some
bodies like CVC or Lokayuktas seem independent, but then they do not have any
powers to seriously able to prosecute guilty. They are just advisory bodies
with mandate to advise the governments – to either impose departmental
penalties on any officer or to prosecute him in court. Experience shows us that
whenever any minister or a senior officer is involved, their advice is rarely
followed. The other serious lacunae in anti-corruption setup seem to be
multiplicity of anti-corruption agencies with fractured mandate which render
them ineffective. Lastly, there is the problem of internal transparency and
accountability of these anti-corruption agencies. There isn’t any separate and
effective mechanism to check if the staff of these anti-corruption agencies
turns corrupt. This seems to be the reason why despite so many agencies, corrupt
people rarely go to jail. Corruption has become a high profit zero risk business.
Deterrence against corruption has eroded to an unprecedented level.
Policy framework
regulating various sectors of Indian economy also seems to be out of tune with
prevailing realities leaving ample scope for corruption. As have been pointed
out in 2G scam above the spectrums were allotted on 'First Come First Serve
basis' in 2008 and that too at price prevailing in 2001 for the spectrum. The
flawed policy has resulted in situation where spectrum has been allotted to
companies with least exposure in telecom sector by manipulating allotment
procedure through political patronage. These companies in turn has sold these sought out spectrum at hefty premium to
corporate active in telecom sector causing enormous loss to national exchequer.
Such precarious situation would have easily been avoided if 2G spectrum would
have been auctioned at first instance. As brought out by Prashant Bhushan in
his speech titled 'Indian State and
Cancer of Corruption', Unbridled Privatization without the commensurate
regulatory framework in place under the diktat of neo-liberal policies has
resulted in government gifting away our precious natural resources to Private
Corporations for exploitation by just charging small royalty. The Policy of
Captive Allotment of Mines has failed to raise precious resources for the
government by transparent pricing of the yet unmined minerals through open
bidding. This kind of policy leaves ample scope for fructification of what is
popularly called as political-business-bureaucrat nexus for mutual gains. Radia
tapes exposure have brought the working of this nexus in full public glare. The
Radia tapes have given the citizens of this country a glimpse for the first time
of how the government’s decisions, policies, laws passed by Parliament,
decisions of regulatory authorities as well as media stories are being decided
by political-business-bureaucrat nexus in which lobbyists have their role to
play as middleman to keep the ball moving in particular direction for mutual
benefit. Public resources worth lakhs of Crores have been swindled off for
private gains through the working of this dangerous nexuses which as now
reached the stage where they are tearing off the very basic essence and notions
of democratic structure of Indian polity to aspire for egalitarian society.
Similarly, the day to day corruption we witness in government offices also
result from application of rigid rules and regulations which fosters
non-transparency and unaccountability in functioning of various government
departments lending routine utilities and services to people of country. For
making the labyrinth move to render even basic services the citizens need to
grease the palm of public functionaries manning these departments.
Measures
Battle against
the menace of Corruption has to be fought with multi-pronged strategy
encompassing integrated measures and methods to uproot the malice rather than
usual stand alone or one off step as have been done in past repeatedly without
much success. The general impatience and enrage among the citizens needs to be
channeled in appropriate direction by civil society members leading the combat
against corruption along with honest politicians in government who are
interested in beating down the malice of corruption now engrained in all
structural pillars of Indian democracy and hollowing them out. Reforms in this
precarious situation thus have to be broadly encompass all the following
fields-
- Administrative reforms.
- Electoral Reforms
- Judicial Reforms
- Public participation through creating consciousness on the issue
Administrative Reforms will play a crucial
role in curbing the malice of corruption. The whole anti-corruption
institutions like CVC, CBI and Vigilance machinery working in various
departments need to be integrated and made accountable to single independent
and powerful authority namely Lokpal. Such an institution will able to provide
some teeth to anti-corruption setup against political and administrative
corruption which at present seems to be fragmented with confused mandates
leaving loopholes in the process of investigation and prosecution of culprit.
The processes in place governing the operations of government departments need
to be streamlined by removing wasteful activities which creates delay and
red-tap thus assist in creating fertile ground for possibilities of bribery.
Every department should be made to declare citizen charter of their own with
deadlines for various services rendered by them along with the name of officers
responsible for providing timely service. Grievance Redress mechanism for
ordinary citizens should also be brought under the ambit of Lokpal institution.
Lokpal police can be created manned by functionaries of impeccable integrity
with appropriate infrastructure on lines of police service with popular
helpline number available 24 hours. If any public servant seeks bribe the
helpline number can be contacted to bring the culprit to book round the clock.
It is by now
well-recognized that excessive, unaccounted and illegitimate election
expenditure is the root cause of corruption. This high and illegal expenditure
forces parties and politicians to extort money from a variety of sources,
legitimizes corruption, encourages political recruitment of those willing to
spend large amounts of ill-gotten black money, discourages public-spirited
citizens from contesting, leads to a vicious cycle of corruption, greed and
extortion, and undermines our democracy. The frequent change of governments and
public representatives has hardly succeeded in making a difference which can
only be felt when the norms of election funding are altered fundamentally. It has generally been observed that politician's
patronage of bureaucrats is at core of rampant prevailing
politico-administrative corruption. Bureaucrats seeks favor from politicians in
form of lucrative postings in return for what they have shelled out to fund
what is now popularly called as Transfer Industry. This so called industry has become
a source of electoral funding for politicians. Electoral reforms with aim to
curb the use of illegitimate funds in election campaign by altering electoral
laws, bringing proportional representative system to ensure that candidates
polling only small percentage of votes don't get elected and bringing general
transparency in funding of political parties and elections can pave the way for
true free and fair elections. Such reforms will also encourage individuals with
integrity and societal-consciousness to contest elections and foray into public
service directly. At present, Section 77 of the Representation of the People Act,
1951 makes a mockery of the election expenditure ceiling, by excluding the
expenditure incurred by parties and others from the purview of ceiling limits.
Judicial reforms
are needed to make sure that the institution which is finally going to convict
the person accused of corruption is above board and free from the malice itself.
According to Transparency International, judicial
corruption in India India
Democratic norms
of the country can really be deepened by institutionalizing the public
participation in the combat against corruption. This can be sought through
committees of citizens with integrity and societal consciousness attached with
departments rendering services to the public to get the feedback and
suggestions which can be utilized to make interaction at cutting edge level between
citizens and government functionaries as much hassle free as possible. Public
opinion should be built-up in favor of actions against malice of corruption by
independent and responsible media by educating people on the issue which would
only encourage participation of general public in the fight against corruption.
Summary
Present
environment of general public unrest and furiousness on the issue is a once in
a life time opportunity to take the battle against corruption to its logical
end. As have been seen in past if something concrete is not achieved on the
issue the apathy sets in with time and anger mellows down. Without going into
the detail of specific intricacies involved what can be said is that in a
democratic country like India India
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