A Requiem for the Karnataka Lokayukta, continued……

There appears to something terribly wrong with the governance of our unfortunate nation, that we cannot even ensure that our Lokayuktas are made of sterling stuff, without a single particle of any base metal. What I write today makes me ashamed of myself.

I wish to take my readers back to my piece, ‘A Requiem for the Karnataka Lokayukta’, that I placed in my blogspot on December 7. I am happy that soon after publication of the article, Shri Bhaskar Rao resigned from the post of Lokayukta on December 9, 2015 and further that the SIT constituted to investigate into this matter requested the Karnataka Government to issue a sanction order to prosecute him, something still pending with the Karnataka Government. Recent events in the Congress ruled State of Karnataka have completed the Lokayukta’s funeral rites.

After the Karnataka Lokayukta Act, 1984 came into force, the anti–corruption work in Karnataka was being done by the Police Wing which formed a part of the organization. The Lokayukta organization had under it an Administrative Wing, an Enquiry Wing, a Technical Wing and the Police Wing.

The Police Wing carried out enquiries entrusted to it by the Lokayukta, or Upalokayukta, and also implemented the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 through their units located throughout the State, which had been declared as Police Stations. In this arrangement, the officers working in the police wing were treated as staff of the Lokayukta and enjoyed certain protection for enabling them to act without fear in the discharge of their functions as per Section 15(2) of the Karnataka Lokayukta Act. This protection deterred the Government of the day from interfering or pressurizing the police wing of the Lokayukta in the course of investigation. The only weapon that the Government possessed was to withhold sanction to prosecute the accused government servant, which was used abundantly.

Suddenly on 14-3-2006, Shri Siddaramiah’s Congress Government issued a Government Order, that brings the entire anti corruption work under the sole control of the Chief Minister. As per Para 4 of the GO, orders declaring the police wing of the Lokayukta in Karnataka as police stations will be withdrawn, and a separate Anti Corruption Bureau, (ACB) will be established, and officers of this new Bureau will be declared as Police Stations. As per Para 5 of this GO, the ACB cannot investigate any matter concerning a public servant without the approval of the appointing authority, who is clearly the Chief Minister. More importantly, as per Para 6 of the GO, all cases pending investigation under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and pending prosecution under the present police wing of the Lokayukta will be transferred to the newly created Bureau. As on date, there are several important cases pending investigation and prosecution in the police wing against important politicians, bureaucrats and police officers. They must be heaving a sigh of relief.

A reading of the Preamble of the GO indicates that the Government of Karnataka has relied heavily on a report of the DG & IGP Karnataka dated 3-2-16, which the Finance Department has agreed to on 4-3-16, after which it has issued the GO on 14-3-2016. Such rare urgency and efficiency is not often seen on public issues of greater importance requiring immediate attention and solution.

The DG & IGP’s Report of 3-2-16 appears to state that it was inspired by a Supreme Court decision of 1998 (C Rangaswamiah vs Karnataka Lokayukta (1998) 6 SCC 66), 18 years ago. This seems to have engaged his urgent priority, notwithstanding incomplete investigations and prosecution of important cases, such as, the Cricket Stadium bomb blast case, or the Kalburgi murder case that even today remain unsolved. The Preamble suggests that the DG & IGP’s report has stated that there is no system of supervision of the investigations of the cases under the PC Act in the Lokayukta. Nothing could be more incorrect. Lokayukta investigations are done by an Inspector, Dy SP, sometimes by the SP, and all such investigations are supervised by the DIG, IGP, and Additional DGP, whose officers have been declared as Police Stations.

While pretending to strengthen anti-corruption work under the PC Act 1988 as claimed in the Preamble, a closer scrutiny of the GO reveals the exact opposite. As per Para 2 of the GO, the Anti Corruption Bureau headed by the ADGP and his subordinates will work under the control of a Secretary level officer of the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR), and will report to the Chief Secretary, who in turn will report to the Chief Minister. By this, it is virtually the Chief Minister of Karnataka who will control all anti corruption operations in Karnataka.

Para 11 of the GO gives no clue of how complaints of corruption against the DG & IGP, or the Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary, Principal Secretaries of the Finance Department and DPA will be dealt with. These are all members of the Vigilance Advisory Board. And most importantly, the GO does not stipulate how complaints of corruption against the Chief Minister and other Ministers of the Karnataka Government will be dealt with, since the powers to investigate complaints under the PC Act have all been removed from the police wing of the Lokayukta by this GO. 

There is no mention in the GO whether this new arrangement regarding the staff of the Lokayukta, which includes the police wing, was discussed with the Upalokayukta, (Karnataka still has no Lokayukta) as is mandatory under Section 15 (2) of the Karnataka Lokayukta Act, 1986. 

It is not difficult to see what lies beneath this GO. Creation of this ACB gives a direct handle to the CM, the ultimate authority of the ACB, which he can use to protect himself against corruption allegations, against dissidents within his own party, against difficult opposition members who can cause him problems, and against honest bureaucrats and police officers who choose to do their duty against political pressure. It is not difficult to get vexatious corruption complaints filed against them with the ACB, directly under his control, and get cases registered against them. That will take care of them for the immediate future.

The Chief Minister of Karnataka has indeed armed himself with a double-edged deadly weapon – to destroy opposition and to protect corruption in a gross misuse of executive power.

My thesis is in complete conformity with the views of prestigious and fearless sections of the press and other media. My thoughts are also echoed by my old friend Santosh Hegde whom I greatly respect.

Let us see how this pernicious, devious move by Siddaramiah is countered politically or by vigilant civil society organizations.

The Great Indian Budget Tamasha – Nothing much about nothing much

Let’s admit it – we love hype. Unless there is hype in the TV news, we find it boring. And our TV channels judge themselves by the amount of hype and hysteria they create. The presentation of the Union Budget every year is a mandatory and routine exercise of every democratic, elected government, sanctioning expenditures and revenues for various activities of the Centre and States for the financial year. In India, we have made it something akin to a carnival. Speculation and debates precede the budget presentation, about authentic GDP growth, deficit financing, inflation rates, FDI, foreign exchange reserves, etc. Big business houses and their lobbyists position themselves visibly or invisibly in Lutyen’s Delhi , either trying to lobby for taxation and exemption proposals in their interest, or using their more surreptitious resources with politicians and bureaucrats to get inside information regarding taxation proposals.

Well, coming back to the Budget, and particularly about the Finance Minister’s Budget speech, it really appears to be nothing much about nothing much. Nothing innovative, the usual tweaking of taxes, this way or that, and recycling of old schemes into new avataras with a few extra flourishes. 

First of all, I hope that the Government will fulfill its promises made to the Defence Forces regarding OROP. I have written extensively about the subject in my blog of March 3, 2016. To give the 75% of what was promised and hold back on 25% which directly and adversely affects the lowest but most critical segments of the defence forces shows complete insensitivity and national imprudence. I hope pensions for the retired soldiers or their widows will be in accordance with the promises made to them. I’m sure the Government realizes that India cannot afford to have disgruntled defence forces, particularly in the present geo-political scenario.

The Budget also suggests that it is relying more on extra-programmatic interventions to secure the welfare of the most distressed sections off our people. Take for example the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yogana, which seeks to provide relief to distressed farmers not through government initiatives, but through Insurance Companies. Or the Health Insurance Scheme, that is supposed to pay for hospitalization expenditure of the poor. The hidden message in these programmes is that the governmental machinery that was created to provide these services is incapable of doing so and has irretrievably broken down, beyond repair. I congratulate the government for having made this admission.

Regarding the Agenda to Transform India, I am happy that the Finance Minister has placed Agriculture and Famers’ Welfare at the top of the agenda. I look forward to seeing how he proposes to give them ‘income security’ and double their incomes by 2022! Irrigation and fertilizers is what we have been speaking about since the First Five Year Plan, and though at a very difficult time, we succeeded in a Green Revolution, we are now faced with its unintended consequences of poor soil health and depleted, contaminated water resources.

I wish the Finance Minister had also given us a White Paper about the real agricultural situation and projections in India. The issues I would consider important as India progresses are - What is the agricultural demand to provide food security in India for the next 20 years at least for its growing population? What special measures in agriculture does he propose for the chronic drought prone and arid zones of India, like Bundelkhand, that tragically remain the same year after year, even though scientific agricultural practices can redeem the lives of the farmers, as has been proven in Israel? What is the projected acreage available for food production, after factoring in the insatiable demand for land for housing, urbanization and industrialization, that is already happening as our society is demographically transforming from the agricultural to the industrial and service mode. I’m sure experts are aware that India is not following the sequential pattern as most industrial societies did, but is entrapped in several time warps, where the service sector has overtaken the industrial sector in the GDP, thanks to the IT revolution and liberalization. What is the projected irrigation cover, what will be the food deficit, and how do we plan to cope with it, as more and more agricultural land becomes non-agricultural land? Year after year, we see agricultural land and production declining, without much improvement in per acre productivity. What is the projected pattern and numbers of rural urban migration, and how will urban India cope with it? Why has the State agricultural cooperative credit structure broken down, that farmers have to turn to commercial banks for agricultural loans, the default of which is driving them to suicide? Does the Finance Minister know that one of the weakest and understaffed Departments at the Block and village level is the Agriculture Department? How does he propose to overcome these constraints? Until these vital issues are understood and addressed through a well thought out strategy and interventions, ad hoc Government’s schemes will only become another bunch of symptomatic measures, draining money out of government coffers, with little transformational or permanent impact. While Rural India will benefit from a Digital Literacy Mission, if it means digital capacity building and not computer marketing, what it urgently needs is a National Agriculture Mission. 

The most disappointing portion of the speech is about the Social Sector. The Budget speech provides no hint as to how it will improve the quality and productivity of our vast human resources, considered to be our greatest strength in this century – the demographic dividend. His statements regarding education and skills are standard, something being repeated from the 1970s. But there is not a word about malnutrition that still continues to afflict at least 50% of the population, despite his 2014 Budget announcement of a National Nutrition Mission. Per capita calorie, protein and micronutrient intake among our children, adolescents, and adults of the poorer sections continues to be far below recommended standards; undernutrition and stunting is rampant, reducing children’s capacity to study, adults’ capacity to work and earn and contribute to the GDP. This, in my view is more important than a Digital Literacy Mission. 

The Finance Minister’s insensitive proposal to tax EPF withdrawals above 40% has thankfully been withdrawn after the wide public protest. But what prompted him include it in the first place?

But his greatest duplicity has been regarding the repatriation of black money stashed away in off shore banks. This is what he says in Para 61 of his speech:

“Our Government is fully committed to remove black money from the economy. Having given one opportunity for evaded income to be declared once, we would then like to focus all our resources for bringing people with black money to books.” (Note the word ‘books’ and not ‘book’)

He consciously reiterates his Party President’s disgraceful charge against Prime Minister Modi of having deceived the people of India by his promise of sharing with every poor family fifteen lacs ( Rs. 15,00,000). It is primarily all about the three cheats in the BJP and a large number in the earlier regime with former Finance Minister Chidambaram heading them all. More about him and Jaitley in my next piece. 

Rahul's Fair and Lovely borrowing from my 2011 Article

My article, ‘Black money amnesty scheme is a scam to cover up another scam’, in Sunday Guardian, written way back in 2011, starts like this,

“So we are at it again, desperately trying to change the colour of money from black to white, with the same Fair and Lovely amnesty recipe. I learn from press reports that the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is "seriously considering" recommending to the government a scheme on the lines of the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS) announced in 1996 to bring back black money stashed in tax havens abroad for productive use in India. Black money amnesty scheme is a scam to cover up another scam”

Link to my article : http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/black-money-amnesty-scheme-is-a-scam-to-cover-up-another-scam

Rahul is really exceptional. He quotes words written by me describing the corruption of some Congress Leaders and in particular Chidambaram regarding black money, and uses them against Chidambaram’s present counterpart, in the Present Modi Government who is his greatest benefactor. I am not averse to your attack on the present Finance Minister but he is only a friendly collaborator with your Chidambaram. 

My Congratulations to Rahul that he reads my writings. Be free to quote but do sometimes indicate the source. Avoid charges of plagiarism.