Corruption is the price of politics; Bengal a case in point

 The stench of corruption is not nasty, offensive or politically crippling as it may have been in the remote, idyllic past. It is taken for granted that money and power are inextricably linked. The arrest of West Bengal Commerce and Industry minister Partha Chatterjee for his involvement in the School Service Commission recruitment scandal, by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) underscores the nexus. But there is no real sense of shock or dismay.

The ruling party in the state, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has distanced itself from the revelation of a stash of ₹21.90 crore secreted in an apartment where Arpita Mukherjee, a close associate of Chatterjee lived. The party is doing its best to brush off the dirt attached to the discovery of several property title deeds in Mukherjee’s name recovered from the minister’s home. And, Chatterjee remains a minister in the Mamata Banerjee government, just as he remains the senior most leader of the All India party as General Secretary.

TMC immune to scandals

In many ways, the TMC has become inured to scandals involving money, because it has survived and flourished despite staggering revelations of close connections between several party leaders and Ponzi schemes and even straightforward barter deals of cash for influence. In 2013, the Saradha chit fund scam shone a very powerful light on shady connections between TMC leaders and Sudipta Sen. In 2016, the Rose Valley chit fund scam revealed more connections between money and TMC politicians. The popularity of Mamata Banerjee and her capacity to lead the party to victory in state elections remains intact. In the May 2021 state assembly elections, the BJP’s negative campaign on pervasive corruption and dynasty politics failed to deter voters from delivering a mandate to her party.

This is emphatically not an invitation to turn a blind eye to the chronic corruption in the political establishment. It is a reality check on the ability of political parties to survive exposures on the nexus between money and politics. The fact is Mamata Banerjee has won three state assembly elections in a row. Her party men who were picked up by ED or the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on charges of money laundering or cheating have also won in subsequent elections. Member of Parliament, Sudip Bandopadhyay was re-elected in 2019, after he was arrested by CBI in the Rose Valley scam and kept in jail in Odisha. Madan Mitra, arrested by CBI in the Saradha scam in 2014 was re-elected to the state assembly in 2021. Mukul Roy, earlier in the BJP and now in the TMC was questioned by CBI in the Saradha scam and was elected to the state assembly in 2021.

‘Tradition’ of corruption

Rent-seeking by those in power is endemic in West Bengal, as it is across India. In the final years of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front, the “party” had taken control of the state administration, including education institutions. News reports, anecdotal evidence and the trashing of merit lists for appointments and admissions underscored that college admissions were controlled by the Students Federation of India (SFI). Appointments of teachers in colleges, transfers and postings were also controlled from the CPI(M) headquarters in Alimuddin Street. The party had manoeuvred itself into the position of patron and everyone else was a client. The Mamata Banerjee regime continued with the patron-client relationship, but was found out and the resistance and fight back was more organised. CPI(M)’s senior leader Bikash Bhattacharya, a practising lawyer in the Supreme Court and Calcutta High Court has been working on the SSC scam case, pro bono, for years.

Soon after as the TMC ousted the Left Front, underqualified drop outs were appointed to school and college governing bodies. The man who became notorious because of his loutish behaviour was a strong man, turned leader, Arabul Islam.

Instead of the “party” it seems that leaders, some of them ministers in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, became the channels for the disbursal of favours. The first minister who was named and shamed by the Calcutta High Court was Paresh Adhikari. His daughter who was a school teacher candidate overtook several others who had done better in the eligibility tests. The Calcutta High Court issued orders sacking the daughter and telling her to pay back her salary. It was, therefore, a matter of time before the needle of suspicion turned to Partha Chatterjee, who was education minister in the first two terms of the Mamata Banerjee government.

Making money from the desperate

The Partha Chatterjee arrest raises two issues. First, is the survival of politicians despite being investigated following arrest because voters do not see them as totally evil. Second, cash for recruitment to jobs, in the state sector as well as in the private sector is a “booming industry,” as one report stated. The two issues are not separate. There is a common basis. There are few jobs and lakhs, actually crores of young aspirants. The only way in which aspirants can game the system and jump ahead in the queue is by finding someone who has the power to hoist stragglers to the front of the line.

A new class of people have emerged, including politicians, some at the top end of the ladder, if the charges against Partha Chatterjee are proved correct, who have absolutely no hesitation in making money from the desperate. There is greed and there is no moral prohibition to stop people from exploiting the vulnerabilities of India’s young job seekers. There are unscrupulous agents who are open to peddling power to make money from desperate job seekers, regardless of whether these job seekers are qualified or have failed to qualify.

The Government of India’s Ministry of Education has put out an alert in March 2022 against sarvashiksha.online, samagra.shikshaabhiyan.co.in, and shikshaabhiyan.org.in, fake internet addresses whose only objective is to misguide job aspirants by using a similar layout to that of the original websites and demand money from the respondents for the recruitment process. In Uttar Pradesh a scam has been unearthed by the Yogi Adityanath government where fake documents were created for recruitment of teachers and assistant teachers against cash payments by job seekers. In Karnataka, the ₹100 crore police sub-inspector recruitment scam is another case in point, where mark sheets were faked by agents against cash extracted from job seekers. In March this year, over two crore young and educated aspirants for railway jobs ransacked railway stations and went amok because they had invested heavily in the recruitment process.

The cash for jobs scandals across India is a measure of the unemployment problem. The latest Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy survey shows a jump in unemployment on the one hand and job losses on the other. Unemployment has shot up to 7.8 per cent and job losses have increased by 13 million, mostly in the agricultural sector. And, more and more young people, part of the “demographic dividend” generation are reporting that they are not looking for jobs. CMIE surveys, based on self-reporting, suggest that a mind boggling 60 per cent have dropped out of the labour market.

Arrests, exposing scams futile attempts

Exposing job scams seems to have no effect on scamsters, be they politicians or professional cheats. The agencies – ED, CBI and Income Tax – are ineffective. Regardless of how many raids, investigations, interrogations and arrests they conduct, the convictions do not come fast enough to warn off potential scamsters or deter the unscrupulous from exploiting the despairing young job seeker

The efficiency of the ED and CBI is open to question.  The conviction rate of ED is under one per cent. The “agencies” however do have a nuisance value, which up until now has worked to intimidate and embarrass the political opposition and influential critics. Reports analysing the targets of raids indicate that since 2014, Central agencies have investigated 570 of the Modi regime’s political rivals and critics and in some cases, their family members as well. The 570 figure is a staggering 340 per cent jump in raids compared to the 10 years of the Congress led United Progressive Alliance government. From about 17 cases a year, the number has zoomed to about 75 cases a year during the Modi years.

Mamata Banerjee’s call for a fast conclusion to the investigation and initiation of a case against Partha Chatterjee, after he was arrested by ED for money laundering is a challenge to the Modi government’s strategy of dragging its feet on getting to the point. As she and the rest of the opposition knows, an investigation that lingers on and on is a weapon that can be deployed again and again to embarrass the political opposition.

The lack of transparency and the opportunities for illicit fund raising in India’s election system have been debated by just about every political party and civil society organisations. None of these debates have succeeded in inhibiting the visibly more expensive campaign style and machinery of political parties. Raids by agencies, unearthing stacks of cash, jewellery, benami property allows political parties to engage in shrill rhetoric about “vendetta” politics.

Central agencies weapons against Opposition?

In public perception, there is a nexus; Mamata Banerjee described the BJP’s modus operandi as a washing machine. Tainted politicians who defect to the BJP miraculously drop off the ED-CBI-IT radar. Investigations dried up after Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Mukul Roy, Suvendu Adhikari, Sovan Chatterjee defected to the BJP. On the other hand, Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena, Nawab Malik of the Nationalist Congress Party and the reopening of money laundering investigations case against former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, 84-year-old Farooq Abdullah, all point to the tactical deployment of the agencies for intimidation and harassment. The same is true for the ED investigations that have been reopened in the National Herald case requiring interminable interrogation of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.

The approaching Amrit Mahotsav deadline and the flagrantly unlawful cash realisations for its celebration in Kashmir could be a reason for hauling Farooq Abdullah in for questioning. Approaching elections in key states, including Gujarat and the intensifying anti BJP politics inside Parliament and in the streets are perceived as triggers for the reopening of investigations against the Gandhis.

The efficiency of vendetta politics involving agencies is questionable. Mamata Banerjee won a two thirds majority in 2021 despite a high decibel campaign about her tolerance of corruption in the Trinamool Congress.

Raids against anti-BJP opposition party leaders does serve a purpose. It bolsters the BJP and Modi’s claim to be the only alternative; the best of a not so good lot. The difference is that the opposition’s misdemeanours can be investigated; the ruling BJP’s cannot. Only 39 individuals linked to the BJP or its allies have been investigated for corruption since 2014. This is a classic move in politics, where the ruling regime projects itself as just a bit better than the rest.

The connection between fund collection and elections is real. The intense pressure on politicians and political parties to amass ever larger war chests, without falling foul of the Election Commission’s rules and watchful agencies has grown exponentially in the past decade. The inflows that keep the BJP buoyant like the 75 per cent of the ₹6,535 crore over 15 phases from anonymous and protected donors collected through electoral bonds are not available to smaller and regional parties. Spiralling rivalry and zooming costs of doing politics have pushed political parties to creatively raise money, in India and in other law abiding democracies as well.  The price of politics is expanding corruption.

 Shikha Mukerjee

Source: The Federal, 27/07/22

Layers of protection: on changes in anti-corruption law

Protecting honest public servants is important; so are anti-corruption efforts

The amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, adopted recently by both Houses of Parliament, are a mixed bag. Moves to make changes in this law, aimed at combating corruption in government, were initiated during the UPA’s second term in office and largely centred on the misuse of one provision — Section 13 (1)d. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had criticised this section, under which public servants are culpable for securing a pecuniary advantage for another “without any public interest”, for ignoring a foundational principle of criminal law: mens rea. This resulted in many honest officials being prosecuted even when they gained nothing and merely exercised their power or discretion in favour of someone. Insofar as it had a chilling effect on governance and deterred bold decision-making, the amended form may have a liberating effect on honest officials. Besides, it is more concise and restricts criminal misconduct to two offences: misappropriating or converting to one’s own use property entrusted to a public servant or is in his control, and amassing unexplained wealth. There was concern initially with the wording, “intentionally enriches himself illicitly during the period of his office”, as it raised a doubt whether the ‘intention’ to amass wealth would also have to be proved. Now an explanation has been added that a person “shall be presumed to have intentionally enriched himself” if he cannot account for his assets through known sources of income.

By making citizens liable for offering a bribe to a public servant, the anti-corruption law has been brought in line with the UN Convention Against Corruption. The only exception to this rule is when one is forced to give a bribe. This exception kicks in only when the fact that one was forced to pay a bribe is reported to a law enforcement authority within seven days. The penal provision can empower people by allowing them to cite it to refuse to pay a bribe. At the same time, what happens when the police or any other agency refuses to register a complaint? People may be left in the lurch with no redress. Further, it may render them vulnerable to threats from unscrupulous public servants who collect money to speed up public services but do not deliver. The most unacceptable change is the introduction of a prior approval norm to start an investigation. When a prior sanction requirement exists in law for prosecution, it is incomprehensible that the legislature should create another layer of protection in the initial stage of a probe. Public servants need to be protected against unfair prosecution, but a genuine drive against corruption needs a package of legislative measures. These should contain penal provisions, create an ombudsman in the form of a Lokpal or Lokayukta, as well as assure citizens of time-bound services and whistle-blower protection. Laws to fulfil these objectives are either not operational or are yet to materialise.

Source: The Hindu, 30/07/2018

Demonetisation effect? Corruption index ranking improves but a long way to go

Global perceptions regarding India’s corruption levels remain high, going by Transparency International’s Corruption Index ratings for 2016. India has improved its standing, rising two points to 40 from last year. The trend line is positive if extremely gradual. India has improved perceptions regarding its degree of corruption by 10% since 2012. But the base figure is extremely low -- 40 points still places India, if not among the blackest of economies, then among the strong grays. The Transparency International survey tends to be taken seriously because its figures are drawn from a compilation of a dozen other surveys and indices of corruption.
As the figures are for 2016, the impact on black money of the so-called demonetisation effort will be unclear for some months to come. What the figure does indicate is that the Narendra Modi government’s earlier efforts against corruption including setting up a Special Investigation Team and the like have only had a marginally impact. That is not a surprise as corruption is deeply embedded in Indian society -- many poor Indians assume that paying a government official to provide the service that should be part of his job is the norm. Such petty corruption has barely been touched by events. The evidence is that reforms have gradually helped in reducing the macro-economic potential for corruption. The scope of discretionary power among bureaucrats, for example, has been reduced. Digital payments have received a boost and they also reduce the scope for illegal hoards of wealth. India seems to have done well here. The Economist’s Crony Capitalism Index, a measure of billionaire wealth derived from politically controlled sectors of the economy, showed such cronyism dropping from nearly 12% of GDP to less than 4% between 2014 and 2016. There is a case for saying that India should be compared to similar emerging economies rather than developed countries. But this does not cut any ice: There is an inherent moral laxity in claiming that a people should suffer from greater corruption because they happen to be poorer. Using that criterion, however, India is doing well. South Africa and Brazil have been dropping points on Transparency International’s index over the past several years. Turkey has fallen a remarkable nine points since 2012. India can still do more. For all its progress on crony capitalism, it is still worse off than comparable economies like Brazil and China.


Source: Hindustan Times, 26-01-2017
The Modi government’s ambitious plans on digitalising economies, including using the planned Goods and Service Tax to push all business transactions online, should reduce the scope of corporate corruption drastically. However, the government’s dilution of the Whistleblower’s Act and dilly-dallying on the Lokpal and Lokayutkas Bill seem to indicate that government corruption remains as much a low-level priority in New Delhi as it has in the past.

 

Note ban not enough: Corruption in India is like water, it finds a way

Every citizen can join this mahayajna against the ills of corruption, black money and fake notes... Let us ignore the temporary hardship.”

It is now 48 days since Prime Minister Narendra Modi made that appeal, as he scrapped 86% of India’s bank note--by value--in circulation. Initially, millions of Indians queuing up to withdraw their own money from bank accounts did indeed ignore the hardship of lost wages and stress of the queue. The common refrain: It’s worth it because the rich with black money will suffer. As it becomes increasingly evident that only those in the queue are suffering, as are livelihoods, the lines are as long as ever and people have died waiting for money, there is a distinct change in mood.

Over the last week, there have been attacks on banks in Uttarakhand, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and roads have been blocked by frustrated mobs in UP. Images of hundreds pressing against a bank entrance’s steel grill, narrowed to allow one person to enter, appear to have become the leitmotif of the era of notebandi, the colloquial term for Modi’s grand experiment. The patience displayed in the queue has given way to jokes, frustration and abuse and eroded the government’s credibility.

Government spokespersons insist there is no shortage of money. They may not be entirely wrong. Every day, India is witness to law-enforcement agencies seizing bundles of the distinctive, pink bundles of Rs 2,000-denomination bank notes. Those in queue ask the obvious question: We stand here for days to get a few thousands, how do they get lakhs and crores?

The short answer is corruption, the very thing notebandi is supposed to strike at. A vast money laundering exercise in India’s unseen financial netherworld appears to have been largely successful, as the anticipated return of almost all the money that was taken out of the banking system indicates (The government thought Rs 2.5 lakh crore or so in unaccounted money would not return). Some of those with unaccounted or “black” money did get their comeuppance, but those numbers are likely to be far smaller than anticipated.

How could this happen? It could happen because Indians are masters of subversion and because notebandi was a shot in the dark, with no precise target or preparation to overcome this culture of subversion. So, corrupt bank officers colluded easily with corrupt seekers of pink notes. Thus far, about 50 bank officials from private and public banks and the Reserve Bank of India have been found conspiring with money launderers--many more have got away. Bundles of pink notes continue to turn up in cars, homes, offices and bank lockers. Bear in mind that these instances only relate to cash. Thousands of crores of unaccounted rupees were converted to real estate, gold and luxury items, from watches to handbags.

Modi has either not understood the reach of corruption into India’s administrative system and collective soul or he did understand but was convinced by his circle of trusted bureaucrats that a series of administrative fiats — surgical strikes, to use popular government nomenclature — without adequate planing could, somehow, bring about the new normal that he seeks.

Corruption in India is like water — it finds a way. It is marked by ingenuity, determination and perseverance, qualities that could transform India if deployed for honest means. The most ingenious method recently evident: Thousands of poor Indians with basic bank accounts persuaded — for a fee, obviously — to rent their accounts to launder old bank notes into new.

It isn’t politically correct to say this, but the majority in India is dishonest, either by circumstance, culture, upbringing or habit. I would like to believe many can be turned if circumstances change, but that may be optimistic, given the casual and widespread disregard of laws in every sphere of life, most visible in the form of the roadside havaldar who waits for a Rs-50 bribe from the streams of vehicles that run red lights. Corruption in India can only be curbed through carrots, sticks, meticulous planning and sustained effort. Incentives are important; so is stronger punishment. As former chief economic adviser Kaushik Basu has argued, it may make sense to decriminalise the giving of bribes.

Read: Note ban not a surgical strike on corruption, it’s firebombing on poor: Rahul

However, most important is administrative and political reform.

In 2007, the second Administrative Reforms Commission made 18 recommendations to enforce ethics in political and legislative functions. All 18 were rejected. Politicians have consistently closed ranks over political reform, and Modi has stayed within those ranks. Indeed, in the budget session of Parliament earlier this year, his government tweaked foreign contribution laws to allow political parties to receive foreign donations retrospectively, from 2010. As soon as this amendment passed, the Congress and BJP, held guilty by the Delhi High Court of accepting foreign donations illegally, withdrew their appeal from the Supreme Court. Yet, Modi said last week that his party had not altered even “a comma or a full stop” in the law that regulated political funding. Some honesty would be in order.

Many commentators have also pointed out how political parties need not account for donations below Rs 20,000. It is no surprise that in 2014-15 six leading political parties received 60% of their funding from “unknown” sources, and the BJP received the most such funding with Rs 977 crore over two years.

The systemic eradication of corruption also requires reconstructing an administrative system largely unchanged since colonial rule. Modi began well: Some old laws were scrapped and business requirements eased. But the bureaucracy and its rusting frame still remains India’s backbone and the tentacles of the inspector raj are as tightly wound around the economy as ever. We have also seen the right-to-information system eroded, no Lokpal--whatever its infirmities--is in evidence, and, now, the efforts to find notebandi’s laundered money portend a greater bureaucratic invasion of our lives, which Modi had once promised to reverse (remember “minimum governance”?). Without a carefully planned, wide-ranging — and honest — war of reform against politics and the bureaucracy, no isolated surgical strike can survive its overstated claims.

Source: Hindustan Times, 26-12-2016

Rooting out graft

A strong Lokpal and protection of whistleblowers hold the key to eliminating corruption.

If we go by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s televised announcement on November 8, the reason to implement demonetisation on such a massive scale was to fight corruption. The narrative has changed somewhat lately and the need to modernise the Indian economy and move towards a cashless society have been presented as additional factors. But the need to counter corruption clearly remains a priority.

Modi’s electoral success in 2014 took place in the wake of a formidable anti-corruption mobilisation initiated in 2011 by Anna Hazare. At that time, thousands of people demanded the creation of a Lokpal. This was one of the most popular movements in post-independence India — it called to mind the movement Jayaprakash Narayan had spearheaded in the 1970s. As Gujarat CM, Modi supported the creation of Lokpal in an open letter to Hazare on April 11, 2011. The Lokpal Bill was passed in Parliament in December 2013 as the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act. A little less than six months later, a new government was in charge. But three years later, there is still no Lokpal.

The government has argued that the search committee has not been formed because there has been no leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Last month, the Supreme Court did not appreciate this reasoning while examining a PIL filed by the NGO Common Cause. The bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi: “When you say the government is committed to cleansing corruption, then this (Lokpal) is the step in the right direction. Why should there be a feeling that the government is dragging the feet? For the last two and a half years, there is no leader of Opposition. This position is likely to continue for next two and a half years. Will you allow the law to become redundant, just because there is no leader of Opposition?” The Court heard the matter on December 7 again, and asked Rohatgi to place before it the Parliamentary Standing Committee report recommending that the law to appoint the Lokpal should be amended. The Court is supposed to hear the matter again on December 14 but voting for any amendment to the law in Parliament will probably take time.

Another Lokpal is also likely to take time and may even become a dead letter — the Delhi Jan Lokpal, which Prashant Bhushan and Shanti Bhushan (who had introduced the first Lokpal Bill in 1968) called a “jokepal” because of the dilution of the project they had conceived with Arvind Kejriwal during the Anna Hazare-led movement. This bill was passed by the Delhi assembly in December 2015, but it was returned by the Centre — along with 13 other bills in June.

In the absence of Lokpals, RTI activists remain particularly important among those exposing corruption cases the most effectively. The Right To Information Act, that was passed in 2005, is, despite all its loopholes, one of the major contributions of the UPA government to, as the Act itself says, “promoting transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority”. However, the implementation of the Act has been dogged by two difficulties, which the government can address. First, according to Venkatesh Nayak, the co-convenor of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) and coordinator of Access to Justice Programme at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, about 1.8 lakh appeals and complaints were pending before the 29 information commissions across the country in 2014-15. This is either due to lack of response from the public officers to demands for information or unreasonable delays in providing information. This problem can be partially solved by reducing the number of vacancies, which represent 24 per cent of the 149 posts of information commissioners across the country.

Secondly, RTI activists are under immense pressure. In 2011, the Central Information Commission had passed a resolution saying that “if it receive(d) a complaint regarding assault or murder of an information seeker, it will examine the pending RTI applications of the victim and order the concerned department(s) to publish the requested information suo moto on their website as per the provisions of law”. This resolution has not been systematically implemented and the situation has deteriorated even more. According to NCPRI data, till date, 146 RTI activists have been harassed (death threats being the most common form of harassment), 118 have been assaulted (many of them were severely wounded) and more than 50 have died (including four cases of suicide and half a dozen killings possibly unrelated to the cause they were defending). RTI activists are under so much pressure because they deal with serious forms of corruption, including land transactions. To protect them, the Whistleblower Protection Act (WBP Act) was passed in 2014 by the UPA government. It turns out, however, that it needs to be upgraded in several respects. The NCPRI has suggested 14 significant avenues for improvement, including the inclusion of a definition of “victimisation” in the Act and the addition of a clause permitting a whistleblower to publicise allegations of wrongdoing through the media.

The Asia Centre for Human Rights has also made three recommendations — mandatory and immediate registration of FIR on complaints about the use of force or attacks against RTI activists; inquiry by a police officer not below the rank of deputy superintendent of police within three months; trial of the accused within six months if the offence is established by investigation. These changes aiming to protect the lives of the whistleblowers have not been introduced. But amendments were introduced in Parliament in May 2015 to dilute the WBP Act. One of them implied that the Official Secrets Act, 1923 applied to whistleblowers; this means they can be prosecuted for possessing government documents on which their complained were based. The amendments also excluded from the ambit of inquiry any matter of “public interest” affecting the “sovereignty and integrity of India” or matters related to “commercial confidence”.

In August 2015, Modi used an Independence Day speech to make his point: “Corruption had eaten away our country like termites. So if I have stopped so much corruption, there will, of course, be many who will curse me. Only those who looted the nation are not enthused by this government”. While he was using a past tense in his first sentence, Modi’s demonetisation drive shows that corruption remains a problem. The magnitude of the challenge would indeed justify the creation of a proper Lokpal and the protection of the whistleblowers.

Jaffrelot is senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, professor of Indian politics and sociology at King’s India Institute, London; Basim-U-Nissa is a student at the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po

Source: Indian Express, 14-12-2016

Lokpal Act must revisit the definition of public servants

A range of measures has been instituted in recent times to deal with the scourge of corruption, including the demonetisation of the high-value notes. Indian industry welcomes these steps, which help infuse transparency and probity into the business environment. However, care must be taken to distinguish between corrupt and legitimate activities or actors.

One of the measures, the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 (L&L Act), was introduced for dealing with complaints of corruption against public servants. The definition of ‘public servant’, however, includes a gamut of directors, managers, secretaries or other officers of societies, associations and trusts that receive government funding of more than Rs 1 crore or foreign funding more than Rs 10 lakh for their charitable or philanthropic activities.

Going by this definition, public servants should furnish particulars of their assets and liabilities as well as those of their spouses and dependent children to the authorities. Non-compliance with this will be imply that the official has acquired the assets through corrupt means and is liable for action against him/her under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.

There are several ambiguities in the L&L Act, which, in current form, strongly discourages the participation of citizens in social and humanitarian activities.

In recent times, the Prime Minister has undertaken a number of seminal initiatives that envisage greater engagement of non-governmental organisations, civil society and ordinary citizens. For instance, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan places the responsibility of constructing public toilets on the private sector. Under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), the expertise of civil society is being leveraged with authority to manage strategic operational issues.

So, the current definition of public servant in the Act also brings into its ambit persons who neither perform a public duty nor receive emoluments from the government or enjoy authority or representation in the service of the government. Officials or directors of trusts, societies and associations, therefore, can in no way be included under this definition.

Financial irregularities by institutions and individuals are, in fact, covered through several other pieces of legislation and policies such as the Indian Penal Code, the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Foreign Currency Regulation Act, the Companies Act, the Income Tax Act and so on.

One repercussion of the provisions of this Act could be loss of talent in the NGO sector, if eminent personalities opt out. It is estimated that there are more than 3 million functioning NGOs with about 18 million persons serving on their boards, most of them on an honorary basis. Some of these could prefer to step down rather than be subject to onerous additional declarations.

One suggestion is to allow organisations to notify one of their key officials as a point person who would be responsible for compliance and liability, while excluding all other directors and employees.

Secondly, there is need to define the extent of financing by the government as many organisations receive tax incentives, grants or other assistance. Instead of the vague term ‘wholly or partly financed’, the threshold could be set at 75% or more of an average of three immediately preceding financial years’ operating budget received from the government.

Third, it is suggested that the provision to include organisations receiving foreign currency under Section 14(1)(h) should be deleted altogether, since this is covered under the FCRA. These are private funds and their misuse or diversion does not constitute corruption as in the L&L Act.

Reworking the L&L Act would contribute to the participation of prominent individuals, specialists, and experts in social, philanthropic and charitable work and ensure their invaluable voluntary engagement with India’s development.

Chandrajit Banerjee is director general, Confederation of Indian Industry.The views expressed are personal.

Source: Hindustan Times, 7-12-2016

Corruption cases up by 5% in 2015: NCRB

Neeraj Chauhan

New Delhi





Corruption remains a scourge in the country with the number of cases reported showing a rise of 5% in 2015 over the preceding year, data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) showed.According to the NCRB, 5,867 corruption cases were reported in 2015, up from 5,577 in 2014. The only silver lining was that the annual growth rate of such cases came down -from 13.93% in 2014 to 5.1% in 2015. in 2013, 4,895 cases of corruption were registered.
By the end of 2015, 13,585 cases of corruption were under investigation, mostly related to public servant taking bribery and criminal misconduct.
The NDA, coming to power on an anti-corruption plank, has introduced several steps to curb graft in government organisations, public sector units, banks and other departments including increased oversight by the Central Vigilance Commission, streamlining government machinery by fixing accountability on officials, digitisation of government projects and policyoriented decision making.
The government amended the Prevention of Corruption Act last year to classify corruption as a heinous crime and longer prison terms for both bribe-giver and bribe-taker. The amendments also sought to ensure speedy trial, limited to two years, in corruption cases.
However, the problem is far from solved. The highest number of corruption cases were registered in Maharashtra (1,279), Madhya Pradesh (634), Odisha (456), Rajasthan (401) and Gujarat (305). Uttar Pradesh reported only 60 cases of corruption and West Bengal reported 18. Delhi reported a 50% decline in corruption cases with 31 cases in 2015, compared to 64 in 2014.
The report said 29,206 corruption cases were pending trial in courts while accused persons were acquitted or discharged in 1,549 cases in 2015.
Former CBI director Joginder Singh said there was no seriousness on curbing corruption. “If any government (state or Centre) wants to be serious about corruption, there should not be the option of taking sanction for a government official. If a person has been caught red-handed taking bribe, why is there the need for taking prosecution sanction for him. There is also need to make Prevention of Corruption Act stricter,“ he said.

Source: Times of India, 1-09-2016