Not playing by the rules

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

 

The joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probing the 2G scam has run into a stalemate. The chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation has admitted to sharing with the political executive a progress report on the coal scandal probe which was prepared on a Supreme Court directive. Parliament has transacted little business in recent days with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party stalling the proceedings demanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s resignation on the issue of interference in the coal scam investigation.

All these indicate that the government and the opposition are not playing the game according to the rules.

The JPC was set up to look into allegations of corruption in the allotment of 2G spectrum. Several criminal cases in connection with the scam are under investigation or prosecution, and the accused include A Raja, a former minister belonging to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and several senior officials.

JPC chairman PC Chacko recently circulated a draft report which pins the blame solely on Raja and absolves the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister who were apparently aware of his actions. To beat Chacko’s plan to push the draft through the committee, which is equally divided, with his casting vote, the opposition members have written to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar saying they have lost confidence in him and asking that he be removed. To gain majority in the committee, Congress members have asked her to disqualify three opposition members citing conflict of interest. 

The JPC mechanism was first tried in 1987 when Rajiv Gandhi’s government faced allegations that the Swedish company Bofors had paid $12 million in kickbacks to secure an order for howitzers. Opposition members pulled out of it saying the chairman, B. Shankaranand, was acting in a partisan manner.

Alladi Aruna, of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which was then an ally of the Congress, stayed on and added a dissenting note to the committee’s report. He said later that Congress members were engaged in a cover-up effort. They did not follow the procedures properly and denied members enough time to study the documents.

The JPC failed to identify the beneficiaries of Bofors payments. The Central Bureau of Investigation, which probed the matter, too could not find them. Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman and friend of the Gandhis, whose name came up during the investigation, slipped away.

Between 1992 and 2003 there were three more JPC probes, all into irregularities in the financial market or the commercial sector. Since no member of the government was under the scanner, the committees could complete their work without any hitch. However, there was no meaningful follow-up action.

The 2G JPC has generated more acrimony than any previous probe. Raja offered to testify before it but Chacko turned down the offer. Chacko also rejected the BJP members’ suggestion to summon the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister.    

The poor record of JPCs notwithstanding, political parties still demand setting up of such committees when allegations come up. A proposal to set up a JPC to probe reports of kickbacks in the Agusta Westland helicopter deal, approved by the Rajya Sabha, is awaiting the Lok Sabha’s concurrence.    

CBI director Ranjit Sinha’s admission, in a sworn affidavit, that the agency had shown Law Minister Ashwini Kumar and senior officials of the Prime Minister’s office and the Coal Ministry a report on the progress of the coal scandal investigation before it was submitted to the Supreme Court may prove more troublesome to the government than the confrontation with the opposition in the JPC.

In this investigation, the Coal Ministry is in the position of a suspect since what is being looked into are its alleged wrongdoings. Sharing of the report with officials of the ministry was, therefore, an act of gross impropriety. Since Manmohan Singh personally handled the Coal portfolio at one stage his office’s interest in the investigation cannot be viewed as innocuous.

Sinha’s affidavit does not say whether the agency made any changes in the report at the instance of those who were shown it.  The court is not likely to overlook his silence on this crucial aspect.

The Supreme Court has been keen to ensure that the CBI has functional autonomy, especially in dealing with cases involving members of the political executive. An adverse finding by it on its handling of the coal probe report can have far-reaching consequences. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, April 30, 2013.

Tracking corruption at top

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

There are hopeful developments on the anti-corruption front. Prodded by the Supreme Court, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is pursuing cases against political leaders with some vigour. For the time, a former state minister faces the possibility of having to spend a year in jail.

Corruption of different kinds afflicts traditional and modern societies. In India, where the old and the new coexist, both kinds of corruption exist.

The corruption stories making big headlines in the media these days reveal graft of the kind that is familiar in the modern societies. They involve siphoning off of resources to corporate entities.

Corruption of this kind has grown alarmingly since India, under prime minister PV Narasimha Rao, took to the path of economic liberalisation in 1991. Some captains of Indian industry who figure in the Forbes list of the rich are beneficiaries of this trend.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, the constitutional authority mandated to look into government spending, reported last year that the manner in which the government allocated 2G spectrum to mobile companies had resulted in a loss of Rs1,760 billion. He is now examining a deal between the Indian Space Research Organisation’s commercial subsidiary and a private company floated by a former ISRO official, which, according to media reports, has inflicted an even greater loss. The deal gives the private operator free access to costly S-band spectrum.

At government establishments, including hospitals and police stations, citizens often encounter corruption of another kind. This involves having to pay bribes to get services which they are entitled to get free of cost. This kind of corruption hurts the poor directly and immediately. Transparency International’s India chapter, which studied the working of 11 government services, including the police, three years ago, estimated that people living below the poverty line paid over Rs9 billion annually as bribes to get basic need-based services.

Throughout the country the police was thought to be the most corrupt department and primary school education the least corrupt, it said.

The burden of corruption at higher levels also falls mainly on ordinary folks since manufacturers and distributors routinely transfer their costs to the consumers. However, people do not realise that the bribe component is also worked into the prices they pay. When the government bestows concessions on companies, normally they do not pass the benefit on to the consumer.

Unlike the other major countries of Asia like China, Japan and South Korea, India has a poor record in tracking down corruption at the top. Narasimha Rao, who was tried after he laid down office, was found not guilty. A Supreme Court judge who was impeached got away as members of parliament, voting according to party dictates, gave a majority verdict in his favour.

Against this background, the ongoing CBI investigations hold out some hope of action. Former Central minister A Raja and senior officials who worked with him were arrested recently in connection with the 2G scam. The net is closing in on Suresh Kalmadi, who was chief organiser of the Commonwealth Games held in New Delhi, and his close associates.

Raja is a leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which is Tamil Nadu’s ruling party and a constituent of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance which wields power at the Centre. Kalmadi is a leader of the Congress party.

The CBI, the premier investigative agency of the country, is directly under the prime minister. Opposition parties have alleged that it is often guided by political considerations. The Supreme Court’s monitoring of highly sensitive cases has limited the scope for political interference in the investigation.

Last week, the apex court awarded a year’s rigorous imprisonment to Kerala Congress (B) leader R Balakrishna Pillai in a case relating to the period when he was the state’s power minister. He is the first minister in the country to be given a jail term by the highest court of the land. His party is a constituent of the Congress-led United Democratic Front, which is now in the opposition.

Sukh Ram, a former Union Communication Minister, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on corruption charges by the trial court two years ago. The last word in that case is still a long way off. His appeal is now before the high court. If he loses there, he can go to the Supreme Court. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, February 14, 2011,

Games politicians play

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The strengths and weaknesses of democracy are in evidence in the political developments that make headlines in the Indian media these days. The players in the political game do not appear to have a proper appreciation of either.

Last week a new government took office in Bihar, the country’s second most populous state and one of the most backward. The elections were marked by less violence and higher polling than before. The ruling Janata Dal (United)-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition was returned to power with an increased majority in the State Assembly.

Political observers described the elections as a triumph of democracy. They gave credit to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who had placed the state on the path of development, and the voters, who had apparently risen above caste loyalties.

The JD (U)-BHP combine, which had won 143 seats in the 243-member house with about 36 per cent of the votes in 2005, bagged 206 seats this time by raising its vote share by three percentage points. The rival Rashtriya Janata Dal-Lok Janshakti Party alliance lost about nine percentage points and its strength in the house dropped from 64 to 25. The Congress, which had won nine seats last time with a vote share of 6.09 per cent, polled 8.38 per cent of the votes but got only four seats.

The representative character of the legislatures thrown up by the ‘first past the post’ system is open to question. However, the system often helps provide for stability. If the system of proportional representation was in force there would have been a hung Assembly in the state, leading to political uncertainty.

A negative feature which has come to light is that more than half the members of the new Assembly are persons with criminal background. Both the ruling parties and the opposition parties have a dismal record in this regard.

Rich men with criminal antecedents started entering the political arena when parties began to rely on money power and muscle to win elections. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in a petition filed by a non-governmental organisation, all candidates are now required to file affidavits declaring their assets and providing particulars of any criminal cases they are involved.

The Election Commission makes the contents of the affidavits public, but there is nothing to indicate that the revelations influence the voters’ choice.

At present, the democratic system faces a severe test at the national level with opposition parties obstructing the proceedings in the two houses of parliament with a view to forcing the government to concede their demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to go into the telecom scandal.

On November 1, the opening day of the winter session, the Rajya Sabha could not function but the Lok Sabha went through the question hour and transacted some legislative business. On the last 11 working days neither house could work.

The government’s hope that Communications Minister A Raja’s exit will soften the opposition’s stand did not materialise. It does not know how it can push through pending financial and legislative business.

The scam is already under scrutiny at various levels. The Central Bureau of Investigation is looking into it. The Supreme Court is considering petitions seeking a directive to the CBI to prosecute Raja.

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report, which throws light on irregularities which resulted in an estimated loss of more than Rs1,700 billion to the exchequer, is before the Lok Sabha. The public accounts committee (PAC) of the house has to scrutinise it.

Given the political leadership’s ability to influence the course of police investigation, the opposition is reluctant to leave things to the CBI, which is under the prime minister. But it is possible for the Supreme Court to immunise the CBI against pressure by itself taking over supervision of the investigation, as was done earlier in some sensitive cases.

Both PAC and JPC are all-party bodies. The opposition’s preference for the latter appears to be irrational for two reasons. One, while PAC is headed by an opposition member JPC is invariably headed by a ruling party member. Two, No previous JPC probe succeeded in bring culprits to book. Yet the opposition wants JPC since it offers scope for making political capital.

The cost of the games the politicians are playing is high. Media reports have pointed out that disruption of parliament results in a loss of millions of rupees. However, the worst part, however, is not the monetary loss. What is at stake is the future of the parliamentary system. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, November 29, 2010