R.D. Bhardwaj “Noorpuri”
It is worth appreciating to note that, The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, which conducted the trials, has given a stiff verdict by awarding death sentence 3/4 days ago to the China’s former Railways Minister, Liu Zhijun, for resorting to corruption and abuse of power by him. Such a sentence comes out in real in some other countries, who consider nation first and above all and every thing else; but it is really very rare in India, whereas, it is also factual position that India ranks quite high in such corruption and financial misappropriation related cases.
It is also a well known fact of India’s plight that while a small man getting a corruption of even Rs. 1,000/- loses his job and sometimes even has to go to jail; but big bureaucrats and ministers responsible for causing scams worth thousands of crores, walk freely in society. Not only that, sometime even he continues in his job and enjoys all government perks and facilities at the cost of common tax payer’s money and still their cases in courts also continue to linger on for decades together and their judgement never comes. That is why, we have seen a series of scams, particularly during the last 8/9 years like – CWG Scams, Housing Scam in Maharashtra, 2G Spectrum Scam and Coalgate scam etc., to name a few big scams, have surfaced but justice has not been done with the engineers of such scams, as they have not been given their due share of punishment.
The wealth of the nation which should have been otherwise utilised in thousands of welfare schemes / projects going on across the nation for the citizens, has been plundered by such unscrupulous corrupt people. On the top of it, there seems to be little political will to punish the guilty. That is why even after more than forty eight years of initially being introduced, the Lokpal Bill is no where to be passed, autonomy is not being granted to the central investigation agency i.e. CBI. And Anna Hazare’s fast and crusade against corruption for making India a clean state (whom crores of people spread cross the country supported whole-heartedly), has been made to suffer an unnatural death by the virtue of vice of whole lot of political class. Had these been done with even 50% sincerity, many of current set of our so called big leaders (irrespect of the fact to which state they belong) might have been pushed behind the bars for ever, if not awarded death sentences like their Chinese counter part, the former Railways Minister, Liu Zhijun.
The serpent of scams is really eating into the vitals of our economy and nobody in the government seems to be even a little worried about it – as to how its ugly head should be crushed and what sort of punishment should be awarded to the guilty. Surprisingly and sadly enough, even our dear economist Prime Minister is just giving it a slip, as if these are just small matters and common man is destined to suffer from all sorts of wants, humiliation, very bad prevailing law and order situation particularly for the members of fair sex, sky-rocketing inflation, injustice and die in penury and India is not a democratic polity with a socialistic outlook.
It must be borne in mind that such an approach adopted by most the current set of leaders is rather supplementing political corruption which is the root cause of thousands of other forms of corruption prevailing in our society and eating into the vitals of our social and economic lives, thereby pushing India to lag behind many other developed nations around the globe, in more than one manner / field. But then, who bothers ?
Things have come to such a passe, that nothing really moves here unless the Courts intervene in such matters, just like in the case of the apex court’s recent two landmark judgements – (a) to get the government quarters vacated three months after the retirement of big bureaucrats and MPs & MLAs etc., and (b) to put ban on contesting elections for the State Assemblies and Members of Parliament by those who have been earlier awarded two years or more jail term for any crime committed by them. Not only that, the Supreme Court has also done fantastically well to put a total ban on contesting election for the posts of MLA or MP by the jailed politicians.
Some leaders and their political parties may cry foul about the judicial activism in such award of such judgements, but they are really praise-worthy for the country as a whole, as the courts have to assume a pro-active role because political class does not show any will and sincere efforts towards their cal of duty required and desired for cleansing the soci-economic-cum-political scenario prevailing through out the country.
