Crime sans punishment

The general feeling is that even the poor would have got a better deal if the different scams and scandals under the successive governments had not siphoned off public money which ran into thousands of crores of rupees. Yesterday, it was the Congress in the dock. Today, it is the BJP but with no shame.

People have become so cynical of the system that they take the rulers' complicity for granted. They are painfully aware of India's top position among the countries known for corruption. For them, most political parties are the same.

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What people have not been able to overcome is the horror over "a nexus between high-placed politicians, high-ranking bureaucrats and criminal elements" that a report in 1993 revealed. The report prepared by former home and defence secretary N N Vohra delineated before them the frightening picture of corruption in high places. His information was based on the data which the Intelligence Bureau and the Central Bureau of Investigation had collected over the years.

The full report was never published. The portion made public was damaging enough. The entire apparatus of misgovernance by different political parties had been laid bare. No name was given out -- neither of politicians nor of bureaucrats. But it was a common knowledge that some top ministers, including one or two former prime ministers and secretary-rank officials were involved in various rackets.

New Delhi did very little to pursue the information because the investigation would have compromised the position of the highest, both in politics and civil service. One thing that became clear was that there was a parallel government running at the behest of criminals, tainted officials and politicians lacking integrity.

The misdeeds of the nexus have not stopped in any way. Their fallout is visible off and on, in one form or another. The Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) complained to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee the other day that six of his ministers had put pressure on the public sector undertakings under their charge to give them money. The Sunday Express carried a few days ago pictures of a videotape showing Environment and

Forests Minister Dilip Singh Judeo taking a bribe, reminding the nation of the Tehelka disclosures a couple of years ago.

From Mumbai -- India's economic capital -- has come the news of a scam of fake stamp papers worth more than Rs 35,000 crore. They were issued under India's seal and printed at the Nashik Security Press under the central government's control.

Denials were on expected lines. The prime minister said that the CVC had met him but had not said anything about ministers or money. Earlier, the cabinet secretariat issued a statement to say the same thing. The videotaped minister first dismissed the matter as part of "his fight against international forces." Subsequently, he sent in his resignation to the prime minister and quit as if he was "morally obliged" to do so.

Vajpayee has made him a hero and the deputy prime minister's emphasis is on who gave the tape to The Indian Express, not the bribe. The BJP defended the minister and did not ask him to quit as it had done in the case of Bangaru Laxman, then the party chief, after he was shown accepting money on the Tehelka videotapes.

The fake stamp paper scam is the only case where some action has been taken, probably because no Union minister or central official is involved.

Nothing has been told officially yet. But Maharashtra police chief RS Sharma has gone on 15 days' leave before his retirement. The name of former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh of the Congress has also surfaced. The BJP has gone to town on that.

The reason why the criminal-politician-bureaucrat nexus gets away with all the sleaze is the obnoxious rule that no inquiry or action can be initiated against senior civil servants in the government and public sector undertakings without prior permission of the ministry concerned. Over the period, ministers and bureaucrats have come to be the two sides of the same coin. That is the reason why no charge, not even a prima facie case takes off the ground.

The Supreme Court came to know about the rule of prior permission while hearing the Jain hawala case in December 1997. The bench comprising Chief Justice Verma and Justices Bharucha and SC Sen threw out what was called the "single directive," which required prior sanction. It enunciated the principle, "Be you ever so high, the law is above you." The cancellation of the order shook bureaucrats so much that it forced the government to issue an ordinance to restore the rule of prior permission. The Supreme

Court had then seen through the game and summoned the Attorney General of India to have the ordinance amended.

This was not to the liking of the political bosses who depended on senior officials to do the dirty job. Different parties came together and decided to give a legal shape to the rule of prior permission. Little did they care that the law might be thrown out because the Supreme Court had already gone over the exercise. The law was enacted early this year while giving a statutory status to the CVC. A provision in the act legalised the rule of prior permission. Thus, the criminal-politician-bureaucrat nexus was restored as before.

But the matter may not rest here. The Supreme Court has already before it a petition challenging the rule of prior permission. A senior advocate Anil Dewan, appointed as the amicus curiae of the court in this very matter, has made a written submission to it to strike down the relative provision "so that the rule of law is vigorously enforced."

The deletion of prior permission provision may discourage senior civil servants from joining hands with politicians for manipulating the system. But what happens to the politicians? They are a lynchpin. The select committee, which restored the rule of prior permission, was that of parliamentarians. None opposed the provision. I was the only dissenter. It is apparent that no code of ethics can stop politicians if they are bent on making money or doing something, which is in their personal interest or that of the party. This is clear from the nonchalant manner in which Vajpayee reacted to the CVC's complaint. In fact, the chief of one public sector undertaking, the National Textiles Corporation, has been relieved of his charges. He is reportedly one of the officials who had complained to the CVC.

All this reminds me of the Jain hawala case. The transaction came to light when one person was arrested at New Delhi for sending money to terrorists in Kashmir. During the raids at the Jain farmhouse, the police stumbled upon a diary that carried the names of top politicians and bureaucrats and the amount of money they received. After some time the matter was dropped.

There is no reason to believe that things will be different this time.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.