The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Politician, official nexus blamed for graft

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 01, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Politician, official nexus blamed for graft

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: Former Lokayukta N. Venkatachala has favoured capital punishment for corrupt politicians and said graft in the State was largely because of the nexus between officials and politicians. He was delivering the Jwalamukhi Sathya Memorial Lecture on the "Role of the citizens in combating corruption" under the aegis of the N.R. Colony Senior Citizens' Forum here. He said even he was not aware of the level of corruption until he took charge as the Lokayukta.

Corruption was prevalent in all taluks, and of the 146 sub-registrars he had spoken to, 144 had confessed that they were corrupt and they indulged in corruption to recover the money that they had spent on their political masters to get the posting which they wanted.

Amendments

He said it was for this reason that he had favoured amendments to the Lokayukta Act. Severe punishment should be given to corrupt politicians. "In my opinion capital punishment would be the most appropriate to corrupt politicians.

When I asked for powers to prosecute those who have been caught taking bribe, the Government refused on the premise that I was asking for total power, which is not true. But the real reason for the refusal was that the Government never wants to punish a corrupt official because that would only be to the inconvenience of ministers and politicians," he said.

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