Experience of past couple of years has shown that eradication of corruption in administration is a complicated business. The main reason is that powerful persons and agencies working behind the curtain are accomplices in acts of corruption. Their identity is not known easily and more often than not they are shielded by political patronage. At the same time, our laws are multifaceted affording all possible defence to the accused and leaving little space to the prosecutor. To add to these drawbacks, very scant use of accountability option emboldens miss-doers and they escape scot free. Unfortunately, the society has lost moral paradigm for various reasons.
Three years ago when the Indian nation felt humiliated by horrendous scams and corrupt practices by the very rulers of the country, there was a stir in civil society against corruption. It was about to become mass movement. But then political charlatans, adepts in the art of dividing society and blocking accountability, manoeuvred to stonewall the movement. The voice was lost in the din of Parliament’s law making procedures where actors wrangled over peripheral issues allowing the main issue of prevention of corruption remain undecided. At that time our State claimed that it was spared the logjam in the Parliament owing to the fact that it had established its own system of dealing with scams and corruption. It expressed satisfaction over the comprehensiveness of the system and poured out assurance that the system was provided the teeth.
When the State Vigilance Organization sat down to deal with thousands of pending cases of alleged corruption and when through an order of the High Court, Additional Courts of District and Session Judges were empowered to hear corruption cases, it dawned upon the authorities that Public Prosecutors were needed to initiate prosecution at the level of the courts of Additional District and Session Judges. Law and General Departments declined to spare the services of sitting Public Prosecutors on the plea that they were overburdened with the work they are doing and hence could not be spared. The Vigilance Organization found that prosecuting of thousands of cases cannot be possible in the absence of Public Prosecutors. Its referral to the High Court for intervention resulted in the Committee recommending engagement of seven retired Public Prosecutors on temporary basis. The point that needs to be made is that this process took a long time to come to final decision. Inordinate delay went in favour of the alleged officials and officers in various departments including senior officers of the rank of KAS and IAS. Some of the accused have retired in the meantime and some have been promoted and transferred. It appears that there has been a deliberate and concerted effort to delay the process of justice because some influential and high ranking officers are involved in corruption cases and the administration wanted to shield them. It took the Committee one full year to submit its recommendation to the High Court that retired public prosecutors could be hired temporarily.
It seems a day dream to expect the Government to take drastic steps for eradicating corruption in administration. The entire system of dealing with these cases is primitive, time consuming and unjustifiable. Justice has to be done within time limit. If the accused are given a long rope, they find opportunity of straightening public opinion in their favour. Now, that six out of seven Public Prosecutors have been provided to respective courts and they have joined their posts, it is to be seen what improvement will it make in prosecuting the cases of corruption and how any of these will be disposed off and within what time frame? On the face of it, we know that these prosecutions are time consuming exercise and a plethora of evidence has to be produced which, however, is not easily available. That often leads to the deferment of the cases. Therefore, a mechanism is to be evolved that will expedite prosecution of cases of corruption by the courts duly empowered by law. The taste of pudding is in eating. It is the output at the Additional Courts that will determine the truth about eradication of corruption in the State.
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