Guest Column | Anna’s Axe

Radhavinod Raju

The history of the last 60 years in India would show that we were never serious about tackling the menace of corruption. World Bank studies show that annually, Indians spend about Rs 21,000 crores for greasing palms of officials to get services that they are entitled to. One of the earliest corruption scandals to hit India was the Jeep scandal in 1948, when jeeps needed by the army for the Kashmir operation were purchased without following rules. Though an Inquiry Committee which went into the scandal suggested a judicial inquiry, backed by the opposition, the government announced in September 1955 that it has decided to close the matter and that if the opposition were not satisfied, they could make it an election issue!

The man at the centre of the scandal, V.K. Krishna Menon, was thereafter inducted as a minister without portfolio in Nehru’s cabinet. There were other corruption scandals during Nehru’s time, and finally a Committee was appointed under eminent parliamentarian, Santhanam, to study corruption. In its report, the Santhanam Committee observed that ‘there is widespread impression that failure of integrity is not uncommon among ministers and that some ministers, who have held office during the last 16 years have enriched themselves illegitimately, obtained good jobs for their sons and relations through nepotism and have reaped other advantages inconsistent with any notion of purity in public life’.

The anti-corruption infrastructure that we have today, consisting of the Central Vigilance Commission, the Central Bureau of Investigation, and vigilance departments in various central ministries and the state anti-corruption bureaus, is a result of the recommendations of the Santhanam Committee. An anti-corruption law was already in place since 1947, the Prevention of Corruption Act. Provisions were made for Special Courts to try offences under the Act considering the seriousness of the offence, so that speedy justice could be given.

The Administrative Reforms Commission set up in the mid-Sixties, had similarly recommended creation of the Lok Pal and Lok Ayukta, at the centre and in the states respectively to check corruption at the apex levels in government. The Lokpal Bill was introduced for the first time in 1968 but it lapsed with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha. It was introduced seven more times in Parliament, the last time in 2001. However, the Bill lapsed each time except in1985 when it was withdrawn. A few states have set up the Lok Ayukta, but there is no uniformity in their functioning and except in Karnataka, the Lok Ayuktas are toothless organisations. This would perhaps show the lack of seriousness in the attitude of the political establishment to the issue of corruption.

The question is whether these anti-corruption set-ups were able to check corruption. No study was done to check corruption levels in gover