Cancerous Corruption

Anti-Corruption Bureau of Maharashtra:
•
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) plans to set up regional and zonal
offices across the city and state, following its success in trapping
many bribe-seeking government officials recently. Its office is in a
remote place at Pochkhanawala Road in Worli, and is not easily
accessible. The registration of complaints online has not helped much.
The ACB sources said the home department is likely to approve the plan
soon. If all goes according to plan, the ACB, like the Mumbai police
commissionerate, in the initial stages will be able to set up at least
four regional offices in the South, Central, North-West and North-East
Mumbai.

• The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on 17th July launched
four mobile vans that will transverse the city and encourage citizens to
register corruption cases on the spot. Home minister R. R. Patil
flagged off these vehicles at the ACB’s Worli office.

The vans,
each manned by four cops, will be deployed in four regions of the city.
The south region van carrying banners with anti-corruption slogans shall
move in the areas of Mantralaya, the Bombay High Court, the old custom
house, sessions and other metropolitan courts, Public Works Department,
BMC, state and city police headquarters etc.

Director-General of
Police (ACB) Praveen Dixit said, “Our motto is to reach out to more
people who are compelled to pay bribes. Generally, people avoid
approaching us, but if we are at their doorstep we feel it would make a
lot of difference.” Additional CP, Vishwas Nangre-Patil said that on the
first day there was a good response from the public.

• A deputy
collector, a public works executive engineer, a senior police
inspector, and a principal of a leading college were among the 508
public servants trapped by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in 375 graft
cases in the first four months of 2014. Significantly, in the entire
last year; the ACB had arrested 281 erring officials in 216 cases.
According to ACB records, the highest number of erring officials caught
this year was from the State Home Department (87), followed by Revenue
Department (79), Municipal Corporations (25), State Electricity
Distribution Company (16) and land records (11). More shocking was the
fact that a few senior police inspectors were caught taking bribes in
the police station itself. Admitting that the data was worrying, Mumbai
Police Commissioner, Rakesh Maria said he was determined to end the
menace. “I had a meeting with all deputy, additional and joint police
commissioners, and have drafted a comprehensive action plan to take on
the erring officials. The results will be visible in a time-bound
period,” he said. “We have prepared a list of the erring officers. We
will counsel them and take action against them. But if there is no
improvement, we ourselves will submit the list to the ACB for further
action.”

• In the above connection, it is interesting to note
what Mr. Julio Rebeiro, Chairman of Public Concern for Governance Trust
wrote in July to Mr. Pravin Dixit. Same is reproduced hereunder:

•
Graft Busters: Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) directorgeneral Pravin
Dixit has analysed every case registered by them under the Prevention of
Corruption Act. Significantly, his report on department-wise analysis
and the bribe details has been uploaded on the ACB’s website. Dixit
analysed the data of 36 departments and found that even for a minor
task, a bribe of Rs. 3 lakh is sought. In the civic body, one does not
get an NOC without paying off clerical staff, even for an early hearing
before the minister of state for revenue one has to shell out a bribe.
There was scope for graft in deletion or addition of names in the ration
card. The bribe amount was small, but alterations were not made without
greasing the staffer’s palm. From Dixit’s investigation, it has been
established beyond doubt that without coughing up money, even routine
work was not possible for a common man. According to the graft
investigator, in the departments of home, revenue, public health, public
works, law and judiciary, finance, urban development, energy, transport
or education, kickbacks were the norm. Dixit has done his job, if
bureaucrats study the report and amend the existing procedure for
obtaining routine certificates, it will be a huge relief for the aam
aadmi.

“Our intern, Rafael Pereira has helped to devise a
complaint in a Whatsapp format to facilitate anybody with a mobile
internet connection to make a complaint to the ACB whenever one comes
across an instance of corruption. The web based application may also
prove to be an attraction for the youth who are mostly electronic-savvy
and make them involved in the anti-corruption campaign.

We, at
the Public Concern for Governance Trust (PCGT), are ready to bear the
cost of the server and in collaboration with The Bombay Coding Company,
will be able to produce the application free of cost to ACB, in public
interest.

Hope we can start work on this application right away with your final nod.”

Transparency International
Corruption Perceptions Index 2013: Corruption remains a global threat:

• The Corruption Perceptions Index, 2013 serves as a reminder that the abuse of power, secret dealings and bribery continue to ravage societies around the world.

The
Index scores 177 countries and territories on a scale from 0 (highly
corrupt) to 100 (very clean). No country has a perfect score, and
two-thirds of countries score below 50. This indicates a serious,
worldwide corruption problem.

The world urgently needs a renewed
effort to crack down on money laundering, clean up political finance,
pursue the return of stolen assets and build more transparent public
institutions.

“It is time to stop those who get away with acts of
corruption. The legal loopholes and lack of political will in
government facilitate both domestic and cross-border corruption, and
call for our intensified efforts to combat the impunity of the corrupt.”

– Huguette Labelle, Chair, Transparency International

• Hereunder 10 countries with highest score:

Corruption and Media:
Research has shown that free and vibrant media is associated with lower corruption and a better response from governments.

Rudiger
Ahrend of the London School of Economics investigated connections
between corruption, human capital and press freedom in 30 countries. He
convincingly shows that lower level of press freedom is associated with
higher level of corruption throughout the world. The interesting part of
the finding was that mere increase in educational levels does not lead
to reduction in corruption. Corruption falls only in cases where higher
levels of education among the electorate are accompanied by increase in
freedom of press. In fact, a standalone increase in education sometimes
leads to increased corruption as the educated elite collude with
nefarious elements in society.

The above conclusions are not based on mere existence of negative correlations between freedom of press and corruption. Careful academic studies control for the influence of other factors that can influence both variables under study. For example, it is possible that some countries are less corrupt because of cultural reasons. It is possible that such countries also have a free press. Thus the driving force behind lesser corruption may be the dominant culture.

To control for such influences researchers use country fixed effects, which take care of all time invariant factors that are common to a country. it is possible that corruption gets reduced only during a year or so due to some event, such as the Anna Hazare movement. Such influences are taken care of by using time invariant effects. researchers also control for the impact of time varying factors such as economic growth, openness to trade, etc. After controlling for the influence of all these factors, they robustly estimate that increased press freedom is associated with lower levels of corruption.

Corruption Charge Against The Judge of The Bombay high court:
In a first of its kind courtroom drama, a defendant leveled allegations of corruption against a Bombay high Court judge, and asked her to recuse herself from the matter. The incident occurred during the hearing of the case between the Kuwaiti Royal family and film producer Sanjay Punamiya, pertaining to ownership of a Marine Drive flat. Punamiya’s advocate told the court that he was allegedly promised a favorable order if he coughed up rs. 25 lakh, and that he has filed a complaint against the judge with Chief justice of HC, CBI, among others and hence she should not hear the case.

Justice Roshan Dalvi, who was hearing the case, however, refused to relent and said that she will continue hearing the case. she asked for a copy of the complaint that Punamiya’s lawyers OD Kakade and Nilesh Ojha had filed against her. She then went through the nine-page complaint, while counsels representing faisal essa, former Kuwaiti consul- general and caretaker of the property waited.

The complaint alleged that Punamiya met justice dalvi’s husband shamim dalvi in march through another lawyer, and alleged that he was promised a favorable order in the case to be heard by justice dalvi if paid the amount. the meeting allegedly took place on 19th april in shamim dal- vi’s office at Yusuf Building in Fort. “Shamim Dalvi told the applicant (Punamiya) that he will have to pay an amount to get a favourable order.”

It is now reported:
Film producer sanjay Punamiya, who is facing contempt proceedings after he accused the Bombay high Court justice roshan dalvi of corruption, has once again tendered an unconditional apology to the judge, and has also submitted an assurance that he will not make such allegations against the high Court judges.

Placing  the  contempt  proceedings  before  Chief  justice mohit shah, justice dalvi noted that apologies tendered by Punamiya and his lawyers were “unacceptable,” that the affidavit filed by them shows “aggravated contempt.” She also noted that Punamiya and his lawyer had made “false unsubstantiated, scandalous and contemptuous allegations about the court’s integrity.”

Punamiya, now represented by senior counsel Pradeep sancheti, told a high Court division bench of Chief justice Mohit Shah and justice M. S. Sonak that he wanted to submit an affidavit withdrawing the allegations.

The  bench  drew  the  attention  of  sancheti  to  the  provisions of section 13(b) of the Contempt of Courts act, 1971, which provides that in any contempt proceeding, truth would be a valid defence if the court is satisfied that the allegations were true and in public interest.

Chief justice shah and justice sonak noted: “the appellant (Punamiya) wants to unconditionally withdrew the allegations set out in his letter/representation dated 5th may, 2014 and that he wishes to tender unconditional apology to this court with an assurance that he would not indulge in making such allegations against this court or any of the judges of this court.”

[All the above stories and information have been excerpt- ed from various press reports.]