Tags:
Journalism of Courage
When an institution meant to monitor crimes of evasion and commission committed at the very gateway to the nation, itself gets transmogrified into a gateway to corruption, something is terribly wrong. Is it any wonder that India is perceived as one of the most corrupt nations in the world, when the first experience a visitor to the country is likely to have is that of wrestling with avaricious and obstreperous customs staff?
The recent raids conducted by the CBI on the offices and residences of some customs officials only underscored the well-known fact that our men and women in white are not quite what their uniform makes them out to be. Since they have the power of arresting or facilitating the movement of goods into the country, the more unscrupulous among them have quickly learnt to personally benefit from that power by seeking considerations to expedite the movement of files. The guilt, of course, lies with both the giver of the bribe and the taker but as government servants, dishonest customsofficials must necessarily bear a greater share of the blame.
The Customs, along with the Excise and Income Tax departments as well as the Directorate of Enforcement, have been named by Central Vigilance Commissioner N. Vittal as the institutions most responsible for endemic corruption in the country. According to him, it is the failure of these institutions that has helped to create a parallel economy with the quantum of black money circulating within the economy estimated at anything between Rs 40,000 crore and Rs 100,000 crore.
He has also reminded the nation that it was a bribe of Rs 20 lakh, allegedly paid to a customs official, that had led to the smuggling in of the RDX that caused such devastation in Bombay in March 1993. Of course, the CVC’s comments were not particularly relished by the officers of the departments so named and there was quite a flutter of righteous protestation at being so unkindly treated. The CBI raids have settled the question of culpability decisively. Now it is time to getdown and clean the mess in such a manner that it serves as an example to offenders in other government departments that have thus far been spared such scrutiny.
A beginning seems to have been made in this direction with the recent decision to treat any undeclared sums of money that a customs official may have on his or her person as illegal gratification. There will also be the additional monitoring of the Central Intelligence Unit of the Customs which was meant, ironically enough, to crack down on desperadoes but will now have to look out for transgressors within the organisation. But these measures will not by themselves serve the purpose if the guilty are not punished.
Only 6 per cent of corruption cases end up in convictions and there are, according to the CVC, no less than 3 crore cases pending before Indian courts, each of which will take 10 to 20 years to be disposed of. What is equally disturbing is that while junior officers and petty clerks get caught, the system seems to be particularlylenient to the fat cats within it who may, for all the world knows, be the most deeply embroiled in the crime and corruption of their department but, like teflon, remain unscratched. Any lasting reforms will have to address this phenomenon too.
