Court

The conviction of Bangaru Laxman – one rare case

The saying in India is that there is no politician who is ever convicted of corruption. Of course, once in a while, this dictum is broken, but almost all of the time, there is no punishment for corruption that is lasting. Even if a lower court does provide some amount of corruption, the conviction is not upheld in a higher court (which may happen in this case as well). For the past many decades, there have many instances where corruption has been alleged, but the investigation has not led to a conviction, but everybody believes that there is large scale corruption that is happening.
The case that shook everybody up was the Bofors case. Before that case, corruption was prevalent, but it never really raised a stink except in some random movie. However, it was Bofors and the investigative journalism that went on which convinced people that there was something that stank, that Rajiv Gandhi was involved in some way. The case went on for years, was one of the reasons that caused Rajiv Gandhi to lose the 1989 elections after the huge win only 5 years back, and yet the case did not really lead to any conviction of any sort.
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Ensuring that lack of sanction does not stop corruption cases against Government officials – Judgement by the Supreme Court

The Government has a number of laws against corruption on the books; if implemented in a proper way, they should be enough to ensure that corruption levels go down. However, when the investigating arms of the Government (such as the CBI, ED, etc) are forced by the Government to behave in a certain way, then there is the need for having an independent investigator such as the Lokpal, or to remove the control of the Government from the current investigating agencies. So, the Government suffers a credibility gap in terms of the reputation of its commitment to fighting corruption.
What causes more problems is the state of corruption cases against Government officers, where a sanction is needed from the Government. Under the Prevention of Corruption Act, a sanction is needed from the Government for the investigation / prosecuting agencies to go ahead with a case against a Government official. One would think that the Government should ensure that those indulging in corruption are proceeded against, and not deny this sanction; this is more so especially when the Government is in such a bind over corruption with its public image battered. And yet, one third of such cases are in a position where the agencies are waiting for Government sanction of the cases.
The suspicion is that in many cases, some elements of the political classes are complicit along with the accused Government official, or that the Government does not really want that official to face prosecution because they want that particular case to die down (as has happened in the past). These cases would get highlighted from time to time in the media, but the situation remained that the Government would not buckle down; what would typically happen is that when the agencies asked for permission, they were not denied nor were the given approval. Instead, there would be a deafening silence to the repeated request for sanction for prosecution, until the agency would give up.
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More discussion about the Batla House encounter – the Trinamool Congress raises the question again ..

Ever since the time for elections come up, one can be sure that the Batla House encounter will come up. And you can be sure that Digvijay Singh will be somewhere in the frame, since he is apparently the appointed politician in the Congress who will raise the issues that are supposed to appeal to Muslims – not the issues that related to development and how to increase the economic condition of the community (since even when he was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, he was never accused of being good on the development angle front), but more about the emotional issues, about showcasing how other parties don’t care for the Muslims, and only the Congress can appeal to the Muslims. So when it comes to issues such as the apparent injustice to Osama Bin Ladenji (his statement) or the Batla House encounter, it is Digvijay Singh who is in the front.
Now, there is a genuine sense of hurt in the community. At the time that the Batla House encounter had taken place, there had been blasts which were created by a group named as Indian Mujahideen, and the Batla House encounter was treated as a breakthrough, which killed some of the members of the group, and also led to the death of a celebrated police official. During this time as well, the police took some short-cuts, arresting some members of the Muslim community (and the media started treating the Uttar Pradesh locality of Azamgarh as a terrorist creating place); both of these actions were not justified. Many of those arrested were not involved, and were released after the courts intervened and the police had no evidence to justify the continued arrest of these.
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