Law needed to curb corruption in govt

Law needed to curb corruption in govt

Rakesh Bhatnagar

Monday, February 8, 2010 0:23 IST

The increasing number of applications invoking the Right to Information Act, public grievances and the outcry against corruption and ill-governance have provoked a parliamentary panel to suggest that inefficient government officials be hauled up under an anti-corruption law similar to the one in Himachal Pradesh. If an officer is found shirking work in Himachal, s/he would be charged under the specific corrupt practices law.

Surely, the suggestion by the standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice is worth giving a try.

Despite the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) reminder to the government
that it set up an in-house mechanism to sort out intra- and inter-ministerial disputes, rather than going to court, no action has been taken by the Centre and the states.

The parliamentary panel has even found a huge number of trivial cases (where the government is a party) pending in courts — employees fighting unwarranted salary cuts, suspension on flimsy grounds or motivated and mala fide disciplinary action. These cases don’t require judicial dispensation. What they need is a human touch from a bureaucrat.

This trend of going to court at the drop of a hat has made the panel feel that “we still carry a colonial legacy’’. In the colonial days, the notion was that if you weren’t satisfied, you went to court. That mindset hasn’t changed, which is why there are still long queues of aggrieved people waiting for justice.

This reminds one of an apex court judgment on a daily wage earner’splea. He accused the government of taking away his job. In this context, the SC had said that agovernment rule that affects a person in civil life could be scrapped by a court. “If any of its (government or its wings) actions or administrative decisions have an effect on civil life, the decisions could be judicially reviewed,” the apex court said.

Civil consequence not only means a breach of property or personal rights, but also of civil liberties, material deprivations and non-pecuniary damages.