How to handle Coalgate scam?
These days I am having a problem when I brush my teeth twice a day. The toothpaste - the same brand I had been loyally using for the last 50 years - suddenly tastes bitter. After some sleuthing around, I discovered the problem was not with the paste but its brand name sounding similar to the Coalgate – the mother of all scams. Luckily for me, unlike the Good Old Party, the toothpaste does not stink.
An old friend of mine - a legal veteran with many courtroom corruption battles to his credit - rued the way the Congress leadership handled the Coalgate scam. “They left it to the opposition to handle it, instead of taking charge. The political leadership should have just let 'due process' take place. But foolishly they allowed the bureaucrats to find a solution. Judiciary is the answer. From an inquiry to FIR to finalisation of the chargesheet to preparing the case of this size would have taken 12 years. Add a few rounds of appeals by the huge number of suspects from start to finish; it be another decade or a little less. And in the meantime, who knows about the turning tide of politics," he was seriously strategising.
I was aghast at the sheer audacity of his suggestion. He must have seen disbelief written on my face. "Don’t look at me like that. Our legal system is designed for this. After all it is to help most politicians who are lawyers. I am sure that is why we do not want to change the system because it supports all stakeholders except the fall guys," he told me with an all-knowing smirk.
"Instead, the Congress leadership allowed bureaucrats to perform the 'vanishing file trick'. This is a clumsy class 4 method in the technology era. They tried to change the leadership in investigating agencies; but nobody believes the agencies anymore. These were unnecessary. Do you remember the Telgi case? It had very big names linked to it. What happened to it? Does anyone remember those big names who have moved on to flourish further?
“It was wonderfully handled. The media had a daily feed of visuals of poor Telgi under narcoanalysis lying on the table like a beached whale. He was mouthing the names of a few well known politicians. Telgi and a few other guys were given long jail terms. But nothing happened to the political leaders. They successfully contested elections, mouthed homilies about moral character and prepared the next-gen to takeover. They saw the merits of using the existing system. They are not Telgis who was a counterfeiter to be jailed; but they have to serve the nation as Netas!” my lawyer friend grinned like a Cheshire cat.
Though I did not like his ear to ear grin, I could not but agree with him. I remember the case study on Telgi scam I wrote for an IIM class. The case study compared it with China’s infamous formalin milk adulteration scandal. Abdul Karim Telgi and few others were convicted for long terms of imprisonment for counterfeiting stamp papers worth an estimated Rs 600 billion! Nothing happened to the political guys.
The case took seven years to be brought to conclusion; probably appeals are still in progress. The last I heard was Telgi seeking a court order to prevent the release of Mudrank, a movie on the Telgi case. After that I read about income tax guys running around in circles to collect a fine of Rs one crore from Telgi.
Of course, the Chinese are smarter both in corruption and in dealing it. The infant milk adulteration was discovered in September 2008 affecting more than 6,200 children. Within a week, 54,000 kids developed the symptoms and four died. The long arm of law swiftly caught the culprits. A number of criminal prosecutions were launched; two people were executed and another given a suspended death sentence. Two others were given 11 years imprisonment. Seven officials were fired. All within two years!
Can that be done here? Of course not; we are a democracy; there is a "due process of law". Forget about the victims but we definitely have human rights for criminals. Above all, we have politicians who have to run expensive election campaigns to serve the people.
But I find the Chinese are a few steps ahead. The adulterers found new food stuff to pollute; in two years it was eggs. But their politicians were even smarter. They are now carrying out large scale arrest of many leaders and top officials including PLA generals on charges of corruption. President Xi calls it living his "Chinese Dream" not "Swach Chini".