Justice delayed
In Jammu and Kashmir, the wheels of justice seem to grind far too slowly. The state government itself admits that more than 600 corruption cases against public servants, including some ministers and several Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officers, are hanging fire.
Sources say that the J&K vigilance department is currently investigating 125 cases involving politicians and senior IAS and state service babus, including some who are retired. Among the babus are former chief secretary Ashok Jaitley and principal secretary Ajit Kumar, both now retired. While proceedings against the two former babus have been stayed by the state high court, the government clearly has been dragging its feet in prosecuting the corrupt. In the case of former health director Muzaffar Ahmad, apparently the case has been pending for 11 years! Clearly, there is need for some urgent “confidence-building” if the government seriously wishes to see a breakthrough in the situation.
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Moily vs babus
Of late, Union law minister M. Veerappa Moily has been at odds with babus in general. When former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha demitted office recently with parting remarks about his “thankless job”, Mr Moily publicly criticised Mr Sinha for making the statement. Now it appears Mr Moily is not averse to taking on babus even within the portals of the law ministry.
There is a clear divide between Mr Moily and law ministry officials over the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). Apparently, law ministry babus are of the opinion that the CAG is not empowered to challenge policy decisions of the government. This opinion, in turn, has been used by the department of telecom to dismiss the views of the CAG on the allotment of 2G licences. Mr Moily, however, believes that the CAG needs to play a more proactive role in sniffing out scams before they break out. At the moment, there’s no telling who’ll prevail.
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Tradition break
The chief of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust has, conventionally, always been a Maharashtra cadre IAS babu. But the recent appointment of L. Radhakrishnan, an IAS officer from Kerala, as chief of the port trust has broken that tradition. Curiously, the government spent several months to finalise the name. Mr Radhakrishnan’s predecessor S.S. Hussain had retired way back in March.
In the intervening months, sources say, the Centre considered the names of two senior babus, information secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey and tribal development secretary Uttam Khobragade, forwarded by the Maharashtra government, but finally named mr Radhakrishnan who was chairman of Kerala Water Commission. The feeling in babu circles is that the Maharashtra IAS lobby in the Centre does not wield much clout and thus enabled Kerala to prevail.
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