This
is a sequel to my last blog ‘Understanding Democracy’.
Our
parliamentary form of democracy is copied from the British parliamentary system
which is also known as the Mother of Parliaments. The only visible difference
is that a monarch is the Head the State and government there whereas we have an
indirectly elected President. I said the only visible difference. But the devil,
as they say, is in the detail. And here are some of those details.
|
Factor
|
UK
|
India
|
|
Periodicity
of elections
|
5
years
|
5
years
|
|
Chances
per candidate
|
2
|
Unlimited
|
|
Antecedents
|
No
pending criminal case
|
No
problem with pending cases and conviction below 2 years
|
|
Place
of residence
|
Should
be resident of the constituency in which contesting
|
No
such restriction. Can even contest from any number of constituencies.
|
|
Attendance
|
90
pc required of 230 days
|
No
limit. Some celebrity MPs like film stars and cricketers have less than 10 pc
|
|
Public
grievances
|
Token
system and resolution within 30 days
|
Lucky
if you get even an acknowledgement
|
|
Expenses
|
Published
weekly
|
Forget
it. Even in the case of MPLADS only the names are displayed not the cost!
|
|
Income
tax
|
Liable
|
Exempted
|
You
can see how our law makers have helped themselves not only irrationally but lavishly
(all the while crying hoarse of India being a poor country!).
One
can understand ministers being considered permanent employees and paid
salaries. But why should MPs be paid salaries (Rs 1,00,000/- pm) instead of
only allowances to cover cost of attending the parliament sessions plus some
honorarium? And they are also paid Rs 2000/- per day for attending Parliament
when in session. Incidentally what are the MPs doing with their constituency
allowance Rs 70,000/-? This is in addition to Office Expenses Allowance of Rs 20,000/-
for stationary and Rs 40,000/- for personal staff, as amended in 2018. How many
times have any MP convened meetings in his constituency and discussed
legislative matters with the electorate which one should consider as the most
important function of an MP, even more than attending parliament sessions
itself? And MPs are entitled to lifelong pension of Rs 25,000/- even if they just serve for one day plus an
additional Rs 2000/- for every additional year or part thereof after the first
5 years. And for free rail travel too. As per information obtained under
the RTI Act an amount of Rs 2645 crores was paid by the LS Secretariat
to clear the bills of ex MPs for the quarter Jan-Mar 2013. There were 3857 pensioner/family pensioners upto
the month of Jan 2013.
In
my earlier article I had also mentioned how India’s first Prime Minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru, had reduced the office of the President, the constitutional
Head of the State and Executive, to a mere rubber stamp. His tiff with Dr
Rajendra Prasad had started even before India had become a Constitutional
Republic. It began with Dr Rajendra Prasad, then President of the Constituent
Assembly, espousing a Uniform Civil Code against Nehru’s Hindu Code Bill.
Adding fuel to the fire Nehru also insisted that minorities should be given
additional safeguards against Hindu majority. It was Sardar Patel who doused
the fires then. But after the first general elections when Nehru returned to
power with considerable mandate from the electorate, he managed to push through
the Bill in bits and pieces- the Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act,
Hindu Minority Act and Guardianship Act, and Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance
Act.
70
years down the line can any sane individual have any doubt whether what was
given to the minorities were just safe guards or unreasonable privileges?
At this point I would just
recommend the readers to ‘The blunder of the Pandit’ by Claude Arpi, published at
https://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/16spec3.htm, on 16 Jun 2004, (I assure you it is an immensely
readable piece.)
In its minimal sense
Government means the Executive. Whether
headed, de jure by the President or de facto by the PM, the delivery of
government services is through the bureaucracy. Unfortunately in our country
the ground situation is think government services, think red tape, think
corruption. Even Google’s Bad Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan of Kerala, has
been reported repeatedly reminding his bureaucrats that each file handled by
them affects the life of at least one citizen. But has it helped? Absolutely
NO.
We are all witnesses to
politicians and bureaucrats blaming each other for the failure of government
administration. And factually both are true.
Writing in the Illustrated
Weekly of India (‘Fragile Chimera’, 6-12/9/1987), K R Narayanan, later
President of India, wrote : Few men are
so disinterested as to prefer to live in discomfort under a government which
they hold to be right rather than in comfort under one which they hold to be
wrong. In politics and administration it is not enough to be right. It is
imperative that the goods are delivered to the people, there is law and order
and a general sense of comfort and above all a common sense of unity in the
country and society.
In 1993, N N Vohra, the
Secretary, Home, of the Union Government chaired a committee ‘to take stock of all available information
about the activities of crime Syndicates/Mafia organisations which had
developed links with and were being protected by Government functionaries and
political personalities.’ A few excerpts from the report would be of interest.
‘CBI has reported that all
over India crime Syndicates have become a law unto themselves. The nexus
between the criminal gangs, police, bureaucracy and politicians has come out
clearly in various parts of the country.
The existing criminal justice system, which was essentially designed to
deal with the individual offences/crimes, is unable to deal with the activities
of the Mafia; the provisions of law in regard economic offences are weak; there
are insurmountable legal difficulties in attaching/confiscation of the property
acquired through Mafia activities. ‘
Director, IB has reported
that “sinister linkage between the underworld, politicians and the bureaucracy,
have been evident with disturbing regularity”.
Secretary (Revenue) stated
‘The field officers of the various agencies of the Revenue Department are often
pressurized by senior government functionaries/political leaders, apparently at
the behest of crime Syndicates/Mafia elements.’
He also highlighted the
following: ‘The utter inadequacy of the criminal justice system; cases are not
heard timely; functioning of the Government lawyers is grossly inadequate; all
this results in a low percentage of convictions and mild punishments. Unless the criminal justice system is geared
up, the work of the enforcement agencies cannot be effective.’
Recently we read how 12
senior officers have been compulsorily retired by the current Finance Minister,
Ms Nirmala Seetharaman, a little less than a fortnight of taking over the
office in Sri Narendra Modi’s second cabinet. The allegations against them are
very serious but none of them have been punished yet. What has been undertaken
is only an administrative action in the manner of removing dead wood. But the
fact is the provisions for such actions have existed in the statute books for
ages. Sections 217, 218 and 219 of the Indian Penal Code also provide for
punishing public servants, who prepare wrong/corrupt reports, with imprisonment
up to 7 years and fine. I bet that if only Sec 219 of the IPC was to be invoked
almost all the information commissioners would spend the rest of their current
and next few lives behind bars. Here is the law for ease of understanding:
Sec 219.
Public servant in judicial proceeding corruptly making report, etc contrary to
law-
whoever being
a public servant, corruptly or maliciously makes or pronounces in any stage of
a judicial proceeding, any report, or order verdict, or decision which he knows
to be contrary to law shall be punished with imprisonment of either description
for a term which may extent to seven years or with fine or with both.
Well,
in the army, before troops are inducted into battle they are encouraged to engage
in ambushes and skirmishes to build up their killer instincts and boost their
morale. Compulsorily retiring a few bureaucrats of the IRS should be seen as
just one of these ambushes. The battle will unfold when those from the IAS and
IPS are subjected to such treatment.
The
master subversion of democracy has been inflicted by the Constitution itself.
Particularly Articles 129 and 215 which provide for the apex court and high
courts to punish for contempt of itself. One can understand a contempt of court
charge in cases where a verdict of a court is not complied with by the
concerned parties. Interestingly, this is only civil contempt. Criminal
contempt is as obtuse as ‘the publication (whether by word, spoken or written,
or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise) of any matter or the
doing of any other act whatsoever which- i) Scandalizes or tends to scandalize,
or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court, or…’. Worse, in
contempt of court cases, the prosecution, jury, judge and executioner are all
rolled into one person- the judge himself.
It
was reported a few years back that the editor of a regional daily-Mathrubhumi-
went to attend a hearing in the High Court of Kerala from his hospital bed in
an ambulance. He was promptly hauled up for contempt of court. Justice V R
Krishna Iyer then wrote to the judge to convey his unease. And he too was
promptly hauled up for contempt. He extricated himself by tendering an apology.
At
the same time a serving Chief Justice of India had said that 20 percent judges
were corrupt. Though it was never disclosed how he came to that figure or what
he had done to curb corruption in the judiciary, what is relevant is that no
contempt proceedings were initiated against him.
Does
anybody remember Karnan? A high court judge who started off as a whistle blower,
reporting corruption in his high court to his superiors? On not finding any
action being taken he went public with his allegations. By this time it also
included charges under the Prevention of Atrocities (SC-ST) Act where he
claimed to be a victim himself. The ‘conflict’ had literally blown up to the
levels of street brawls. And he found himself in prison for 6 months for
contempt of court.
Then,
even before Karnan was out from jail, we saw a few of those who were in the
bench that convicted him, collectively questioning the very integrity of the
then CJI in such a routine matter as allotting cases to various benches, by
imputing motives to him. No case of contempt again.
What
has disturbed me equally or more was the fact that the 4 judges, led by Jasti
Chelameswar, next in seniority only to the CJI, wanted the masses to believe
them without any proof being offered. But
then it didn’t take long to have a reason to empathise with these judges. It
came in the form of what is now known as the Sabarimala verdict by the bench
headed by this very CJI, Dipak Misra, a few hours before he demitted office.
This verdict is a blatant subversion of Article 26 of the Constitution. For
more details please read my blogs/articles listed below.
To
conclude, I would plagiarise Constantin Demiris in Sydney Sheldon's ‘The other
side of Midnight’ and state that a thousand times more crimes have been
committed in the name of justice than in the name of hate or whatever else.
16
Jun 2019
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