As scam follows mega-scam, we are witnessing how the rot of corruption is fast spreading to every part of the system. Every time a scam is unearthed, some enquiries are ordered but rarely are the guilty punished. But these scams are no aberration – rather, they have become the order of the day. Earlier some liked to believe that although the government and bureaucracy are corrupt, judiciary and army are clean. But even those comforting illusions have been shattered.
The CWG Mega Scam
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) in a preliminary investigation of Commonwealth Games works found evidence of pervasive corruption in 16 CWG-related construction works: work was awarded at higher rates and to ineligible agencies, bids had been tampered with, there had been irregularities in issuing of tenders, and needless ‘upgradation’ of infrastructure like street lights. Virtually all government organisations involved in executing these works — the PWD, MCD, DDA, NDMC, CPWD and RITES — stood implicated in this mess.
According to the report, “Almost all the organisations executing works for Commonwealth Games have considered inadmissible factors to jack-up the reasonable price to justify award of work at quoted rates citing urgent or emergent circumstances.”
It emerges that the Governments at Delhi and the Centre, including the Prime Minister himself, were aware of the CVC’s findings long before these became public knowledge, but the PMO signalled the CVC to keep the lid on these revelations and not to play spoil-sport by exposing the corruption in Games works.
The quality of construction was so compromised that several of the prestigious structures (stadiums, swimming pools etc) collapsed or developed massive leaks before the Games could even begin!
Some 500 items – ranging from computers to disposable toiletries to dustbins to treadmills – were procured on rent (often from foreign companies) at rates almost ten times what it would cost to buy them outright – and the entire cost of such overlays amounts to Rs. 650 crore.
The OC Chairman Kalmadi invariably imposed a conditionality in each tender to ensure that no Indian company could compete: that bidders should have “relevant experience of working with sports events.” As a result, it was ensured that everything from furniture to toilet paper was procured from ‘foreign’ suppliers!
The case of the Queen’s Baton Relay is even more bizarre. In the first place, the company – Maxxam International – that quoted the highest price (Rs 8.01 crore in contrast to the Rs. 1.19 crore and Rs 1.85 crore quoted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Brilliant Entertainment Networks respectively) was hired as a consultant for the Queen Baton’s Relay.
Then comes the fact that the OC paid out nearly 2.5 lakh pounds to two UK-based firms – AM Films and AM Cars, both owned by one Ashish Patel – without a contract in place and without following any tender process, for services like providing transport, video screens and mobile toilets during the Queen’s Baton Rally in London. In addition to that money, 25,000 pounds were being transferred into AM Films account every month resulting in about a transfer of some 4, 50,000 pounds to London. Kalmadi produced an email purportedly proving that the firm was recommended by the Indian High Commission – but the mail was proved later to be doctored. Another email surfaced later showing that a member of the Organising Committee, Sanjay Mohindroo, had asked Ashish Patel to quote highly inflated prices for taxis.
Kalmadi’s circle of cronies embraced even those in the BJP camp. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting floated tenders for construction of broadcast compounds in stadia – a project that should cost around Rs 50 crore. Kalmadi’s OC pushed for the contract to be given to Deepali Tent House, owned by a nephew of BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal. The Ministry shortlisted three companies including Deepali, but Deepali’s rates were so inflated that the Ministry opted out. To evade pressure from the OC, the Ministry avoided giving the contract to any of the three companies and instead gave it to a PSU. To ‘compensate’ Deepali for this, Kalmadi handed it a Rs 230 crore contract from the OC for supplying, testing, maintenance and removal etc of CWG overlay infrastructure.
During the Games, scam revelations were sought to be muzzled in the name of ‘national pride.’ Later, the UPA government has announced a high-level probe headed by former Comptroller and Auditor General VK Shungloo into various allegations of irregularities concerning the conduct of the Games. Several investigative agencies including the CBI, Central Vigilance Commission, Enforcement Directorate are supposedly already looking into various aspects of the CWG mega scam. Given the maze of scams and the multiplicity of agencies involved in the whole process of organizing and conducting the Games, it is quite possible that the process of investigation will get lost in the bureaucratic labyrinth and the political game of mutual mudslinging and shadow-boxing. Already there are signs that the whole thing is being sought to be reduced to a showdown between a Kalmadi and a Dixit or the CWG Organising Committee versus Delhi Government.
The government has decades of experience in delaying and diverting such probes and blunting their edge by finding a scapegoat or two. Moreover, the major political parties are all closely involved in the business of running the sports and games show in the country. Pushing the CWG probe to at least some reasonable level of logical conclusion will therefore call for a high degree of sustained civil society activism.
Media – Pulled by Corporate Strings
We have already seen how in the Radia tapes, Vir Sanghvi is shown to have ‘dressed up’ his piece on the Ambani brothers’ dispute to make Mukesh Ambani’s interests appear as ‘national interest.”
In another conversation, celebrity anchor Barkha Dutt is heard agreeing to act as a courier between the Kanimozhi-Raja faction of DMK, lobbied for by Radia, and the Congress. Whether she did so or not cannot be known, but in a later conversation, Radia is heard telling someone that “Barkha has got the Congress to issue a statement.”
There are also several references in the tapes to interviews with corporate being ‘scripted’ and even ‘rehearsed’ in advance.
What has come out very clearly from the Radia tapes is how powerful media houses and personalities are deeply in the pockets of corporations – and therefore obligingly ‘dress up’ corporate interest in the garb of ‘national interest,’ fake public opinion and even obligingly carry messages from corporate lobbies to ruling parties in order to help install the Minister desired by the corporate lobby.
Corruption in the Judiciary
We are witnessing a shameful situation where the last Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, K G Balakrishnan, is now facing charges of his close family members having acquired huge illegal assets. Shockingly, Balakrishnan continues to be the Chairperson of the NHRC!
Many High Court judges are facing charges of corruption – such as Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court, Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran of the Sikkim High Court (formerly of the Karnataka High Court) and Justice Nirmal Yadav of the Uttarakhand High Court (formerly of the Punjab and Haryana High Court).
The existing mechanism for dealing with corrupt judges is highly ineffective. Impeachment is prefaced by judicial enquiry – but the enquiry is often conducted by the judge’s own friends and colleagues! Take the case of the Enquiry Committee into the charges against Justice Dinakaran – the then Chief Justice Balakrishnan appointed a close personal friend of Dinakaran’s – Justice Sirpurkar – as the Chairperson! Only after much protest was Justice Sirpurkar replaced by Justice Aftab Alam.
There is also the Rs 23-crore Ghaziabad PF scam in which a Supreme Court judge (since retired), seven Allahabad High Court judges, 12 judges of the subordinate courts and six retired High Court judges are allegedly involved. The key accused, Ashutosh Asthana, died in jail mysteriously in October, 2009. He had provided vital documents to the CBI that established connivance of these judges. Recently, the Supreme Court rejected the CBI’s plea for shifting this case to New Delhi.
In case after case involving huge corporate interests, the Supreme Court has shown itself liable to bias and corruption.
The ‘contempt of court’ law is often wielded to intimidate those who challenge judicial misconduct or corruption. A recent instance is that of Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan who was charged with contempt when he alleged in an interview that around half of the last 17 Supreme Court Chief Justices had been corrupt.
Campaigners against judicial corruption have demanded an independent Judicial Performance Commission as a Constitutional body to systematically and transparently examine the performance of and complaints against judges, having the power to take disciplinary action against them. They have also demanded that judges be brought under the ambit of the Lokpal legislation.
Corruption in BPL, Rationing and Rural Welfare Schemes
A study in 2007 by Transparency International India and Centre for Media Studies (CMS) found that the amount paid by BPL house-holds as bribes to access rations, healthcare, education, water and other rural welfare schemes including MNREGA was to the tune of around Rs 9000 million a year!
According to this ‘TII-CMS India Corruption Study 2007, the police were considered to be the most corrupt of all. Of the 5.6 million BPL households that interacted with the police in that year, a whopping 2.5 million paid Rs 2,150 million as bribe for some work or the other.
The TII-CMS study also revealed that PDS service was not readily available as 5.36 million BPL families had to pay bribe to avail services that were basically meant for them and they had had to bribe officials in order to get ration cards!
Nearly one million households were denied hospital services simply because they either refused or could not afford to bribe hospital staff/officials. Similarly, staff and officials of school indulge in corrupt practices in order to admit the child of poor parents, issuing certificates to them and promoting the child from one class to another.
Huge scams in PDS rations (where the subsidised rations are siphoned off to the market) and MNREGA funds are the order of the day in all states, and those exposing such corruption have often faced repression and violence – the cases of Lalit Mehta, Kameshwar Prasad and Niyamat Ansari in Jharkhand (activists killed for challenging MNREGA and BPL scams) are fresh in people’s memory.
‘Adarsh’ Patriotism
The NDA regime had been caught in a scam involving the purchase of coffins for Kargil martyrs. Now the Congress Government in Maharashtra has been caught colluding in land grab and illegal construction and allocation of flats invoking Kargil veterans and widows. In a supremely cynical gesture of mockery, the scamsters chose to call the illegal housing society ‘Adarsh’ (which means ‘ideals’ in Hindi). The whole episode speaks of the total lack of moral values or ideals on the part of a whole range of powerful powers.
The notorious corruption and dishonesty of politicians is often contrasted with the ‘uprightness’ and probity of the army. The Adarsh Housing Society Scam, in which a large number of top army officers are deeply implicated, has irrevocably busted that myth. Defence Minister A K Antony has had to acknowledge “a criminal conspiracy” by defence personnel, who “colluded” with the promoters to divert 6,490 sq. mt. of land (that the Army had “de facto” possessed for the past 60 years) for commercial purposes.
The scam originated when some army personnel mooted the idea of flats to “accommodate and reward the heroes of Kargil operation and those who had laid down their lives for the protection of the motherland”. Although the plot proposed (in the prestigious Colaba area of Mumbai) was one in which coastal regulations prohibited high-rise constructions, the magic mantra of ‘Kargil’ with its halo of nationalism was used to ignore and delegitimize environmentalists who raised questions, and a 31-floor structure came up. But the list of those who eventually got flats allotted to them in this apartment complex reads like a virtual who’s who of defence top brass, bureaucrats, and top Congress and NCP politicians of Maharashtra including the former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan. Of the 103 names to whom flats have been allotted, only 3 are in any way connected to Kargil!
The Congress has replaced Ashok Chavan as CM and ordered a CBI enquiry, and the Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has ordered the demolition of Adarsh society. The Maharashtra High Court has meanwhile sought data on large-scale violations of the Coastal Regulatory Zone Act leading to unauthorised real estate constructions and environmental depredations along a 60 acre stretch of land in South Mumbai.
But it remains to be seen if the CBI will bell the cat and identify and prosecute those responsible for this shameful scam.
Meanwhile other similar scams involving army land have surfaced in other parts of Maharashtra and the country. The Bofors case and the scam revealed by Tehelka during the NDA regime showed how top army officials as well as politicians often receive kickbacks during defence deals. We cannot afford to insulate the army from scrutiny and allow its officers impunity to violate the law – army officers who are charged with corruption too must face prosecution and trial.
