More jobs for the boys

I am sure it was perfectly legal. It could not have been anything else given that the recommendation came from the chief justice himself. Presumably, it also passed through the mills of the law officers and of the Union law minister. If all these legal luminaries were satisfied, it is certainly not for me to debate the legality of such an appointment.

Was it ethical? Well, ethics is something that cannot be defined by the statute books. It is up to every individual to draw the line for himself. And by resigning both posts, Justice Venkataswami has implicitly admitted that the principle of ‘Caesar’s wife’ still packs a punch.

But there is one issue that should concern us taxpayers — the reasons behind creating the Authority for Advance Ruling (Custom & Excise). It is our right to know why the Government of India wants such a post. It is not my case that our tangle of customs and excise regulations cannot be improved, but I question how much a one-man body can manage to do. Let me also point out that the attitude of the government is one that offers no great reassurance on the utility of creating such a post.

Permit me to give you the chronology. The proposal was initially mooted in the Finance Bill of 1999. I am sure some reason or the other was given at the time. Yet there was so much else happening just then — the one-vote defeat of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry, Kargil, the thirteenth general election — that I cannot remember what came was made for creating the office of Authority for Advance Ruling (Custom & Excise).

As it happens, it took Parliament another year to give its sanction to the proposal. Believe it or not, it then took one more year before the mandarins in the Government of India wrote to the chief justice asking for recommendations to fill the chair.

Finally, five more months — and two chief justices — were required before the judicial wing fulfilled the request. (In all honesty, I cannot blame their Lordships; a chief justice of India has more than enough on his plate without going through a hundred resumes.)

Look at the time that all this has taken to proceed from soup to nuts. It is now forty-four months since the Union finance minister made the original proposal. It is thirty-two months since Parliament approved his request. Yet the chair of the Authority for Advance Ruling (Custom & Excise) remains empty.

Following Justice Venkataswami’s abrupt resignation, I am sure it will take at least another six months before the chief justice can find another suitable candidate. (It took about that long in the first instance; I am certain the chief justice will be even more careful this time.)

Does this really suggest that the new office is a vital cog in the machinery of government? And if it is not really necessary, why should the taxpayers’ dues be wasted upon the foundation of one more post? Without some cogent reason being offered — and I cannot recall any on tap — the suspicion is that this is just another case of creating ‘jobs for the boys’!

(Sadly, the store of unnecessary expenditure does not end there. Justice Venkataswami had already spent a lot of time investigating the Tehelka allegations and counter-allegations when he was offered a new hat.

While I have no precise figure to quote, I am sure the commission of enquiry would have cost the taxpayers several lakh rupees. Has it all gone down the drain? With Justice Venkataswami’s resignation, I suppose the whole tiring process of taking evidence must start from square one. Like it or not, that means the expense — in money and in time — must be borne once more.)

There has been a brouhaha over ‘propriety’ and the allegations that the Government of India sought to ‘influence’ Justice Venkataswami. But the genuine scandal — unquestioned expenditure of public money — has been given the heave-ho, not just by the Opposition but even the media.

Let us give the Union finance ministry the benefit of the doubt, accepting that there were cogent reasons to create a new post. That being the case, would someone care to enlighten us why the will of Parliament has been flouted so long and the place left unfilled? Yes, I know Justice Venkataswami’s resignation threw everything into turmoil, but that does not explain why the bureaucracy took so long in the first instance to draft a simple letter to the chief justice.

And, with all due respect to the personages concerned, may I point out a simple dictum: the job to be done cannot wait upon the convenience of any particular individual.

If, that is, there is a job to be done… If not, then, to paraphrase Poe’s most famous line: Quoth the taxpayer ‘Nevermore!’