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Vittal seeks EC's aid to clean up poll process

Chief Vigilance Commissioner N Vittal said on Thursday that his office was seeking co-operation from the Election Commission to ensure that criminals do not become administrators, so that corruption could be curbed to a large extent in the country.

At a seminar in Ahmedabad on 'Restructuring bureaucracy in India', he said his commission had taken up the issue with the Election Commission to see how electoral laws could be amended, particularly the Representation of People's Act, to ensure that law-breakers do not end up as law-makers.

Vittal suggested that no political party must be permitted to contest elections unless it had the latest annual accounts duly audited by an auditor, as prescribed by a notified agency like the Election Commission, Comptroller and Auditor General or Supreme Court. It should also get its income tax dues cleared and obtain requisite certificates from the authorities.

Complaints regarding corrupt practices during elections could be looked into by the Election Commission even before the date of polling. ''If a person is charge-sheeted in cases involving grave offences and moral turpitude, as identified and notified by the Election Commission, he should be banned from contesting elections,'' he noted.

The CVC described as ''sensitive'' the role of law-makers in promoting a corruption-free government. ''According to the Constitution, the legislature makes the law, the judiciary interprets it and the executive implements it,'' he said.

''The minimum requirement for ensuring that law-makers would promote a clean administration is that they should themselves be not law-breakers,'' he added.

Vittal regretted that the country remained ''very corrupt'' even after 53 years of Independence. According to the global corruption perception index, India ranked 73 among 99 countries as assessed by the Berlin-based non-governmental organisation, Transparency International.

He attributed corruption in government to a glut of ''complicated and obsolete'' laws. ''The greater the number of laws, the greater is the scope for red-tape and corruption. It will be good if law-makers could have a look at the existing laws in the statute book and see how many of them could be done away with.''

The CVC said that in addition to the scrapping of obsolete laws, there was a need to introduce a system which would ensure that no law remained on the statute book forever and thereby acted as another source of corruption.

''We should, therefore, bring in the sunset principle, as in the United States. There, laws remain on the statute book for five or 10 years. At the end of that period, unless the law is consciously reviewed and re-promulgated, it gets annulled. This would automatically ensure laws would not clutter the statute book,'' he pointed out.

Vittal said another important aspect was that law-makers should pass legislation which would ensure a corruption-free government. ''Transparency is increasingly recognised as a method for checking corruption. There is therefore an urgent need for passing a Freedom of Information Act.

''There has been a fear that the Act would be passed in such a way that there would be so many provisions and safety clauses which could ultimately defeat the basic objective of transparency in administration.''

It would be necessary for the law-makers to ensure that such loopholes were not left in the law and the citizens have access to as much information as possible so that the degree of transparency in the government is enhanced. ''In fact, except for a small list of items having a bearing on the security of the nation or some aspects which have a direct bearing on maintenance of peace, there should be no restriction in the public accessing government information. To the extent our law-makers are able to create such an environment, they would have taken an important step towards bringing in a culture of honesty in the government,'' the CVC asserted.

Equally important was the need for having laws to punish the corrupt. ''Corruption in our country has become a low-risk, high-profit business activity. The Law Commission, in its 167th report, has suggested enactment of the Corrupt Public Servants (forfeiture of property) Act. It is time this law was enacted so that corrupt public servants did not take advantage of the legal process to escape punishment.''

UNI

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