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Friday, Oct 26, 2007
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Ratify UN convention against corruption: Venkatachala

Staff Reporter

Delivers 34th Foundation Day Lecture at Indian Institute of Management

N. Venkatachala

BANGALORE: India should make it a priority to ratify the United Nations Convention Against Corruption to which it is a signatory along with 140 other nations, if it means to fight the disease that is eating into the country’s economy, N. Venkatachala, former Lokayukta and retired Supreme Court judge, said here on Thursday.

Delivering the 34th Foundation Day Lecture at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Mr. Venkatachala said he had chosen to speak on the theme, “Administrative Corruption in pre-Independence and post-Independence India”, to sensitise the students who would be confronted with the many faces of corruption as they begin their careers.

It was unfortunate that Independent India should have found a top-ranking spot among the most corrupt nations, in the Corruption Index published by the non-government organisation, Transparency International.

In 2005, Transparency International India had, in its India Corruption study, estimated that “speed money” paid to avail services which are their entitlements from government departments amounted to Rs. 21,068 crore.

What is noteworthy is that most of the bribe money was received by 10 major departments, and the Rs. 21,068 crore does not include the large amount of public money involved in cases of mega corruption or grand larceny, in the highest echelons of the government, Mr. Venkatachala said.

Indeed, the anti-corruption laws of post-Independent India were rendered ineffectual or perfunctory because they have not been made to curb administrative corruption among public servants discharging public duties of public offices.

The laws are interpreted to suit the convenience of those in power, and these included Commissions of Inquiry Act, Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988, Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003, and the Lokayukta Act.

Today, if there is one Central Act which can be used for curbing corruption among public servants, it is the Right to Information Act, which enables the public to obtain information such as file notings relating to administrative actions, he said.

However, it was unfortunate that the menace of growing corruption was not being curbed despite demands from the people.

IIMB Director in-charge V. Namadevara said the institute had started several new initiatives during this year, and more were in the pipeline for 2008.

The highly successful one-year management programme for entrepreneurs and family businesses, an initiative of the N.S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneural Learning, is now set to go into its second year, he said.

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