Opinion A commission is forever

When the government finally discloses the contents of the Justice Liberhan Commission report there will predictably be a hue-and-cry in the media and heated debates in Parliament and outside.

July 10, 2009 12:57 AM IST First published on: Jul 10, 2009 at 12:57 AM IST

When the government finally discloses the contents of the Justice Liberhan Commission report there will predictably be a hue-and-cry in the media and heated debates in Parliament and outside. But I am fairly certain that nothing substantial will actually emerge out of the whole long-winded exercise,spanning over 17 years. Invariably our commissions of inquiry begin with a bang and end in a whimper.

One has only to look into the history of past commissions to understand how they as Shakespeare would say,are full of sound and fury; signifying nothing. Take,for example,the Jain Commission,set up to inquire into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. (This is not to be confused with the parallel CBI inquiry in which arrests,charge sheets and convictions were successfully made.) Arjun Singh used the commission as a weapon in his intra-party squabble with then-Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Leaks of the commissions findings regularly embarrassed many,from the not-so-godly godman Chandraswami to the DMK,which was part of the United Front government. It led to the fall of the Gujral government in 1997 after the Congress withdrew support citing the report. Finally,a multiple-disciplinary monitoring agency was formed in 1998 to look into the conclusions of the seven-year-old commission. Eleven years later,the MDMA is finally being wound up,with little to show for its efforts. No fresh insight has emerged even into the money trail behind the assassination.

A commission which disappeared midway was the Venkataswamy Commission on the Tehelka tapes. It was constituted during the NDA government to silence the opposition,which was baying for George Fernandess blood. K. Venkataswamy resigned from the commission after it came to light that he already headed two other commissions. He was replaced by S.N. Phukan,who submitted Part One of his report. But before he could submit the crucial Part Two,the Congress was voted back to power. Then-Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj unceremoniously wound up the commission,although Phukan protested that he wanted no more extensions and was ready to submit Part Two.

In 1999,the Manoj Mukherjee Commission was set up to find out whether Subhash Chandra Bose had indeed died in the air crash of 1945. The Mukherjee panel was the third commission to look into the very same matter. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had constituted the Shah Nawaz Commission and Indira Gandhi the Khosla Commission. Years later,Mukherjee concluded that Bose had not died in the air crash,but had since expired. Considering that in 1999 Bose would have been 102 years old,it needed no great investigative skill to make the claim that Bose had probably passed away. But the commission was not able to enlighten us as to the circumstances of Boses death,though it visited Japan,Britain,Germany and a few other places in search of the truth. Incidentally,the government rejected the Mukherjee Commissions findings. Does this mean there is scope for yet another commission on the subject?

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi asked G.T. Nanavati to inquire into the burning of the Sabharmati Express bogies in 2002 in which 58 passengers died. Six years later,the judge concluded that the train was set on fire because of a conspiracy. But before the commission gave its report,the U.C. Banerjee Commission,set up by then-Railway Minister Lalu Prasad,came to the diametrically opposite conclusion,that the fire in the train was accidental. This only reinforces the suspicion that those who institute commissions select judges they believe will reflect their point of view.

The Thakkar-Natarajan Commission instituted to investigate the assassination of Indira Gandhi pointed the needle of suspicion in many different directions,but came up with few definite conclusions. One of those at whom the needle pointed was R.K. Dhawan,Gandhis loyal factotum. That no one took the report seriously is clear from the fact that Dhawan was subsequently appointed a minister in the Narasimha Rao government and remains a senior member of the Congress.

Commissions which study policy issues can be just as purposeless as those which investigate crimes. In 1983,Indira Gandhi appointed the Sarkaria Commission to examine Centre-state relations. It took the commission six years to prepare its report but almost none of the 247 recommendations in the 1,600 page report have actually been implemented. Two years ago,the government appointed Justice M.M. Punchi to head a commission to look into Centre-state relations once more. The same subject,incidentally,was also covered partially by the high-powered Venkatachalliah Commission which reviewed the Constitution. The Venkatachalliah Commissions recommendations are,like that of many other commissions,gathering dust in the law ministry cupboards.

Just how long can a commission continue? Some commissions are open-ended. For example,Balakrishna Eradi,at 87,is still the chairperson of the commission on sharing of the Ravi-Beas river waters between Punjab and Haryana. Eradi has been holding the post since 1986. Surely a record of sorts.

coomi.kapoor@expressindia.com

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