Morung Express News
Kohima | June 14
While the Nagaland government has chosen to remain comfortably silent on the matter, the IT raids have raised broader questions in a state that is plagued by allegations of institutional and political corruption that has no respect for the rule of law.
However, for some, this case provides an opportunity to identify core systemic problems ailing Nagaland state.
“The problem is nobody follows the rules,” stated a senior Police officer while interacting with the media on June 13. This case is “just a symptom of the problems in Nagaland,” the officer lamented and added that the problem is the system itself.
The officer emphasized the need to adhere to the Nagaland Government Servant Conduct Rules, 1968, wherein two significant rules among the 34 rules and regulations issued on government employees were emphasized.
One of the rules concerns the prohibition of government servants engaging in any trade or undertaking any employment other than his/her public duties or carrying on directly or indirectly any business or undertaking or using his/her position as a Government servant to help such business or undertaking.
The other relates to the submission of an annual return of movable and immovable properties owned by a government employee. This rule, the officer pointed out, is rarely practiced by government officials.
“If these two things are in place in Nagaland,” the officer stated that, “no government servant can have assets disproportionate to his income. These are things which should be followed but are not being followed. This leads to generation of unaccounted wealth.”
“Ignorance of law is no defence or excuse,” asserted the officer. “Just because our system is rotten and compromised we think that within Nagaland we have no problems but when this system interacts with other systems then the problems emerge … and conflict comes,” the officer observed. “We think that we can get away but the other system will not allow you to get away,” the officer cautioned.
The officer observed that the prejudices which are functional in Naga society have percolated in all government establishments, which has allowed the fusion of milk and water. Whereby in the process, no one is able to identify which is milk and which is water anymore.
