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The cash for questions scandal

That some Members of Parliament routinely accept bribes to ask parliamentary questions is one of the worst kept secrets in New Delhi's corridors of power. What the sensational sting operation, conducted jointly by Aaj Tak television channel and a website, cobrapost.com, reveals is how smooth and well-oiled the system of cash-for-questions is. The journalists who posed as lobbyists for small scale manufacturers were lent a helping hand by political secretaries, who acted as go-betweens, and welcomed by MPs who greedily accepted wads of cash without bothering to check the genuineness of the organisation they claimed to represent. In political terms, the Bharatiya Janata Party has been the worst hit by this shameful scandal, with six of the 11 stung parliamentarians belonging to it. For a party that launched a political offensive against the Congress on the Volcker report — and even disrupted Parliament on this issue — the expose could not have come at a more embarrassing time. However, with MPs from three other parties involved (the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal) the scandal cuts across party lines and has wrought considerable damage to the prestige of Parliament itself.

In dealing with those exposed by the camera, there is a lesson to be drawn from parliamentary history. In 1951, the media drew attention to the fact that H.G. Mudgal routinely took money from industrialists in exchange for tabling questions on their behalf in the House. A Parliamentary Committee confirmed this and the MP was forced to resign after Jawaharlal Nehru moved a resolution to expel him. If the 11 caught on camera fail to provide a satisfactory explanation to the inquiry committee, constituted to present a report on what exactly transpired, they must be dealt with in the strongest possible manner. In an intensely competitive milieu where television channels are ever on the lookout for sensational stories, the MPs who had devised the system of asking questions for cash were a ready target. It is true the 11 MPs did not actively seek bribes but were lured by offers of money into an entrapment. However, while there may be legal defences against entrapment, the practice of cash-for-questions is shocking and undermines the public service character of representative institutions. The scandal also brings into focus the stark irony of providing MPs with blanket immunity that was evident in the JMM case, when the Supreme Court ruled that MPs who took bribes could claim legal immunity if such money was received in connection with what they said or how they voted in the House. As the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution has suggested, the immunity enjoyed by MPs should not cover corrupt acts such as "accepting money or any other valuable consideration to speak and/or vote in a particular manner." For such acts of bribery, MPs and members of State legislatures should be dealt with under the ordinary criminal law. The latest sting operation highlights the importance of defining and delimiting privileges in a manner that does not tacitly license acts of corruption.

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