Opinion Shielding power
An article in the CPIs New Age discusses bureaucratic corruption,which it says has taken deep roots with the tacit support of the powerful political class.
Shielding power
An article in the CPIs New Age discusses bureaucratic corruption,which it says has taken deep roots with the tacit support of the powerful political class. In this context,it notes that the delay in sanction of permission to prosecute officials is proving to be a major hurdle.There are more than 157 corrupt bureaucrats against whom various government departments have delayed action by not giving sanctions. The CBI,it notes,needs the prior permission of the Centre to lodge even an FIR against officials above the level of a joint secretary. After the probe,the CBI has to seek prosecution sanction from the Union government.
It says the CVC received 5,783 complaints of corruption in 330 government institutions but action was taken against 2,429 officials only. The government organisations simply ignored the advice of CVC to penalise the corrupt… Major penalties like dismissal,removal and compulsory retirement from service were taken only in selective cases. Not even a single corrupt officer out of 331 in the finance ministry headed by Pranab Mukherjee was punished. In the Central Board of Direct Taxes and the Central Board of Excise and Customs,422 corrupt babus were let off.
Rudderless Congress
As the JPC-PAC debate continued,the lead editorial in the CPMs Peoples Democracy says there is no sign of realisation within the Congress that it has become steeped in corruption due to the nexus of big business and government that has developed under its dispensation.
It says the Congress leadership sees nothing wrong in having its ministers in government promoting the interests of big corporates and getting favours in return and says that the refusal to have a JPC inquiry into the 2G spectrum scandal stands out as an example of the Congresss refusal to come to terms with the rot that has set in the higher echelons of the government. It hits back at the Congress for allegations of corruption in Left-ruled states: The Congress party knows very well that not a single minister in the Left-led governments is facing a corruption charge.
Conviction and doubt
On Binayak Sens conviction,CPI(ML) weekly ML Update says the Raipur sessions court disregarded the paucity of evidence,the glaring holes,contradictions and unmistakable signs of planted evidence in the prosecutions case,and delivered a political verdict. However,this verdict itself… has landed itself in the peoples court. In particular,the Chhattisgarh police exposed itself to public ridicule for its attempts to link Sens wife Ilina Sen with terrorism based on her email to the well-known Indian Social Institute of Delhi,which the prosecution mistook for Pakistans (ISI), it says.
It notes that the Chhattisgarh polices testimony in the sessions court contradicted its earlier statement in the Supreme Court,another crucial fact which the verdict ignored. With Sens conviction,it appears as if concocted evidence and farcical trials,like fake encounters,are becoming the Indian states weapons of mass intimidation. But the travesty of justice in Sens case,however inadvertently,added fuel to the fire of protest and all-out rejection of the states policy of silencing and criminalising dissent,it notes.
Referring to Ratan Tatas statement that if the Radia tapes were made public,it would make India a banana republic where people go to jail without evidence,it says in reality,the verdict indicated that India is turning into a banana republic for the likes of Sen who expose and challenge corporate loot and state repression,while the governments protect the right of Tatas and Ambanis to loot in privacy.
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