As new corruption charges are being brought to public notice by the India Against Corruption (IAC) led by activist turned politician Arvind Kejriwal, the hard truth about a well knit nexus between politicians, bureaucrats, corporate and even political parties is finally being exposed with better clarity than ever before. After allegations of corruption against Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and Union Minister Salman Khurshid the IAC has now brought to light the involvement of BJP President Nitin Gadkari in the irrigation scam in Maharashtra and where the BJP leader has been accused of receiving personal favours by getting around 100 acres of agriculture land in Maharashtra after the Congress-NCP government there bent rules. While it will be indeed interesting to see how thing unfold on what is being described as political parties actually working hand in glove to loot the system, for now this column will try and address how honest and upright officers are being victimized because of their refusal to toe the line set by the corrupt system. In this regard, it was quite shocking to read that one IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who happened to take on the corrupt land deal involving Robert Vadra and the DLF, had been shunted out. While in the present system the government of the day has the prerogative to transfer officers including those from the IAS, nevertheless what seems to be blatant abuse of power is evident by the fact that this upright IAS officer has so far been transferred 43 times in 19 years with most of his postings lasting merely months. The officer claimed that the state government had "abruptly" transferred him as a "punishment" for acting as a whistle-blower in several dubious land transactions. It is obvious that this is a clear case of violating statutory regulations.
In fact whether the Prime Minister has forgotten or not but a few months back while inaugurating the 7th Civil Services Day event, Dr Manmohan Singh had asked civil servants to take bold decisions and giving the assurance that the government would not indulge in “witch hunting” against them in the name of fighting corruption and was committed to protecting the honest. What the Congress led government in Haryana has done is in complete variance to what the PM has said. Perhaps the PM should intervene into the matter and set a course correction so that honest officers like Mr Khemka can take ‘bold decisions’ in the fight against corruption. Having already made that commitment “to protect honest and well meaning civil servants”, the PM should walk that talk. The only silver lining to this gross abuse of power that is coming out more and more into the public eye is that this should bring into greater focus hopefully the need for urgent administrative reforms in the country. As per experience in the working of our system including in Nagaland the bureaucracy especially at the top they tend to serve their so called political masters more than the public. It is an open secret that this nexus is behind misuse of power and corruption. Furthermore, this unholy nexus has led to the common practice of corrupt officers who get prime postings while the honest officers often get punishment transfers, as in the case of Mr Khemka in Haryana. It is clear that there is a powerful nexus colluding to cheat the system. What is lacking is not the reforms but the political will to implement them.
