PIL Filed in Supreme Court to Curb Corruption in India
The petition argues that the injury caused to people is extremely serious because corruption is an insidious plague, having a wide range of corrosive effects on the country.
By RMN News Service
A public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the Supreme Court of India has prayed for a direction to the Central government, states governments, and the union territory (UT) administrations to set up expert committees to analyze and help improve India’s global ranking on Corruption Perception Index.
India has been ranked at the 80th position among 180 countries and territories in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) prepared by a global anti-corruption research organization Transparency International. The index is based on perceived levels of public sector corruption in these countries, according to experts and business people.
In his PIL, according to an India Today report of September 13, Ashwini Upadhyay has sought the constitution of expert committees to examine good practices of the countries, ranked among the top 20 in the CPI, and take steps to weed out bribery, black money, etc. Besides all states and the UTs, the PIL has made the Law Commission of India and the ministries of Home Affairs and Law and Justice as parties.
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Reasons for Corruption in India Corruption is increasing exponentially in India because most anti-corruption departments of the government such as the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), anti-corruption ombudsman organizations Lokpal and the Lokayukta, state vigilance departments, and economic offences wings of police are apparently complicit in most corruption cases. Instead of taking action against the corrupt officials, they protect them. Moreover, these departments are full of unskilled investigating officers who lack communication skills and do not understand various aspects of white-collar financial crimes. In order to check corruption in India, these officers should be held accountable and punished for their failure to handle corruption cases. By Rakesh Raman |
The petition argues that the injury caused to people is extremely serious because corruption is an insidious plague, having a wide range of corrosive effects on the country. It adds that corruption undermines democracy and rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life, and allows organized crimes like separatism, terrorism, smuggling, kidnapping, money laundering, extortion, and other threats to human security to flourish.
The petition also says that corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, and it undermines the government’s ability to provide basic services, seeds inequality and injustice, and discourages foreign aid and investment.
The petition said that due to massive corruption, even after 73 years of independence, 50 percent of India’s population is in distress and facing hardships in livelihood. The PIL contended that the “rule of law” guaranteed under the Constitution cannot be ensured without curbing corruption but the Centre and the states are “not taking appropriate steps” to weed out the menace.
It says that India’s dismal ranking in Corruption Perception Index confirms the Centre and states’ poor performance on many fronts including the violation of fundamental rights, lack of transparency, serious threat to public order and security, pathetic regulatory enforcement, and ineffective civil and criminal justice system.
