Alphabet soup
The mechanisms exist to investigate corruption. But where’s the political will?
The opposition forced an adjournment of Parliament on Monday, shouting “We want a JPC”. A joint parliamentary committee has been used effectively in some cases in the past — true, but for issues where our political system needed cross-party clarity on something. It’s not a mechanism suited for criminal investigation, nor should it be expected to conduct one. Equally, the problem is our investigative agencies have, time and again, helped create the perception that, in cases similar to the 2G spectrum under-pricing, they are incapable or unwilling to do the job.
This is more than simple ineptitude. Ferreting out corruption today requires more than a simple interrogation of a couple of witnesses, or detailing disproportionate assets. You need to be able to estimate possible revenue streams, for example, or determine real estate prices. It might be reasonable to assume that the concern is the state’s institutions, here as elsewhere, simply don’t have the manpower or expertise. Yet the CBI, for one, has wide-ranging powers — including the co-opting of experts to help them. So it isn’t a lack of capacity that’s the constraint, causing our investigating agencies to bumble about like the Keystone Kops. It is, instead, a steady politicisation of their role, and their consistent inability to assert their independence, or the absence of the political will to allow it.
The simple fact is this: the institutions exist to investigate and indict those with political power and connections. It’s possible to imagine murder cases, for example, or even riot cases, coming to a conclusion, however delayed. But not so corruption cases. Resignations are necessary for political fire-fighting, but accountability cannot stop there. An accountable system, and natural justice, requires that the normal mechanisms of the law are permitted to operate. That would require the independence of the CBI, in particular, to be strengthened, and the agency also being seen to be accountable. Yet, as long as the political will to do so is missing — and using the CBI to file and withdraw cases is merely one of the perks of being in power at the Centre — closure will elude us when dealing with high-profile accusations of corruption.