The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Cases without guilt-edge!

The special CBI court found former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao guilty of having bribed the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs for saving his government from being voted out of power. The Delhi High Court now says Mr Rao is not guilty. Neither is his former ministerial colleague Mr Buta Singh. The nation is not amused. The tax payers are in fact in a nasty mood. The reason for the widespread sense of disquiet does not stem from some hidden urge that the former Prime Minister and his colleague should have been sent to jail even if they were not guilty of the charges of corruption brought against them by the CBI investigators. The sense of dismay and disappointment has its roots in being fed false promises that corruption in high places would not be tolerated. But in case after case the judicial pronouncements have been more unpredictable than the movement of the sensex. And it is not just Mr Rao and Mr Buta Singh who have benefited from the unpredictability of the judicial interpretation of the evidence presented before it. AIDMK supremo Jayalalitha’s political career appeared to have ended when the special courts found her guilty of acts of corruption in several cases instituted against her. However, she has bounced back with doubled political vigour after the Madras High Court acquitted her in the Tansi land deal as also the Pleasant Stay Hotel case. In both the cases she was accused of having siphoned off crores of rupees through the manipulation of deals. Of course, Mr Rao is not in a position to threaten Ms Sonia Gandhi as the prime ministerial option, if and when it arises. But he cannot help rejoice at the judicial turn of events that saw him being acquitted in the St Kits forgery case and now the JMM bribery case.

The tax payers, for it is their money that flows like water, have a right to ask the political leadership to explain the rationale behind pursuing patently flimsy cases - as the acquittals have proved. Look at the fate that befell the Jain hawala case. The stink of corruption began from Union Home Minister L. K. Advani’s door to that of a plethora of political heavyweights, cutting across party lines. After prolonged hearing the court threw out the hawala case. No. It is not the judiciary that is not doing its duty. Rather it is doing conscientiously. It is the prosecution that needs to do a lot of explaining. Or more specifically the political leadership of the day. The Indian people are not fools as not to understand the reason why cases of corruption fail judicial scrutiny. The answer is simple. The political leadership pressurises the investigating agencies to “build up” cases against political rivals so that it can turn around and tell the voters that the promise to go after corrupt politicians and bureaucrats was being honoured. Perhaps, the voters of Bihar know better. After the voluble Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav and his wife, Chief Minister Rabri Devi, were booked in several cases of corruption, including the highly publicised fodder scam, their political stock did not dip. Who is interested in finishing political corruption? Not the politicians. Not the bureaucrats, for they manage better deals for themselves, by taking the pledge of silence when their political masters indulge in acts of misdemeanour.

LPG rollback

While commenting on the 2002-03 Budget, we had predicted that some of the harsh provisions would be in for revision soon enough. Well, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has lived up to his rollback reputation with the government announcing a partial cut of Rs 20 per cylinder of LPG whose price had been increased by Rs 40 in the Budget speech. The reduction announced by Petroleum Minister Ram Naik in the Lok Sabha on Saturday is sought to be explained as a concession to the salaried class, but make no mistake about it, it is more to appease the NDA constituents who have been complaining vociferously that the price hike, coupled with other unpalatable decisions of the government, would make their election prospects bleak. In any case, the tactics of first announcing a harsh decision and then pulling back the punches has been employed so often that it has become rather foreseeable. After all, it is very much in step with the great Indian tradition of bargaining and haggling. Fixed prices take away half the fun out of shopping, don't they? Mr Sinha has himself given the game away by saying that at least half of the increase in price stays. The decision will gladden the hearts of millions of consumers but at the same time it will place an additional Rs 700 crore subsidy burden on the Centre. Not only that, it may retard the entire drive to reduce subsidies. Market-determined pricing regime is to come into effect in the oil sector from April 1. Prices of crude oil in international markets are going up but public sector oil companies have been reportedly told not to increase prices of diesel and petrol immediately after the introduction of the new system.

Now that the government has yielded partially, the demand for taking back the hike in other fields will also gather momentum. In such matters, no party displays respect for realistic considerations. The Opposition has already started clamouring for doing away with the hike in LPG prices totally. The next in line is the increase in the price of kerosene. For now, Mr Ram Naik has firmly ruled out any change. But tomorrow is another day. Statements emanating from BJP office-bearers give enough hint that even if the government does not yield on the kerosene front, some relief in income tax burden to the middle class is very much in the offing. If there is one field where the government can be depended upon not to do anything, it is unproductive expenditure. This is not a sarcastic comment; only realistic.

OPINION

PSCs in the age of specialisation
The outdated concept should be discarded
Bhim S. Dahiya

Under Article 315 of the Constitution of India exists the provision for the creation of public service commissions for the Union of India and its various states, with the stated function of conducting examinations for appointments to the services of the Union as well as the states. Although seemingly an examining body, the commission of the Union as well as of each state does more than conduct examinations for the various posts in the public sector. These commissions, as a matter of fact, conduct the entire procedure of selection from beginning to end. They hold the preliminary examination, then the main, and then the interview for the Indian Administrative Services and the State Civil Services. Each of these commissions comprises a few members — ranging from three to 13 (no number is prescribed in the Constitution) — arbitrarily appointed by the powers that be, the only restriction being the 50 per cent ratio of those who have been in the government service for at least 10 years.

As for the theory of numbers, every new government in the state adds one or two in order that some members, if not all, should owe loyalty to it. Those members of the commission who try to observe independence quite often face rough weather readily created by the powers that be. As for the members with the qualification of 10 years’ government service, there are examples of even clerks and assistants having been picked up to adorn the membership of the state commission so as for the qualifications of other members, retired and rejected politicians, their wives and daughters, personal assistants and private secretaries of Chief Ministers have honoured the membership of the state commissions. But all this does not constitute the outdatedness of these commissions. The point relates to their origin and to their original assignment, which continue even after a century and half of their conception in the form in which they were introduced by the British rulers, despite the fact that drastic changes have taken place in the destiny of the nation.

The British rulers of India introduced the concept of the commission in 1853 for the recruitment of the Indian civil servants, meant for managing the general administration of the colony. The immediate need at that time was to abolish the patronage of the East India Company in the selection of civil servants, and to transfer the privilege and power of making these selections to a centralised agency owing allegiance to the Crowns’ nominated ruler of the colony. The foreign rulers needed these so-called civil servants for the surveillance of its colonised subjects. These servants were, in point of fact, the frightening face of the foreign rulers who intended to run the administration with an iron hand. But that also is not really the point about the outdatedness of these commissions, although the high profile and domineering attitude of the Indian Administrative Services are directly related to this colonial past of these services. No doubt, there is plenty in the outlook and functioning of the top brass in the Indian administration which can be traced to its colonial legacy. And yet, the pertinent point about the outdatedness of these commissions is not so much their colonial legacy as the generality of their own membership as well as of those selected for the numerous departments under the umbrellas of the Indian Administrative Service and the State Civil Service.

At a time when the subjects of study have been split into micro specialities and the jobs have been made highly technical and professional, the notions of the commission of generalists, and the cadres equally so, are decidedly anachronistic. While the selectors use their common sense to make a consensus appraisal of the candidate’s general abilities, the selected generalists use their general abilities to administer departments dealing with highly specialised work or trade. Consequently, conflicts arise between the general administrator and the specialist subordinate. The commissioner and the engineer, the commissioner and the doctor, the commissioner and the educationist always run into conflict situations, highly detrimental to the growth of the individual speciality or trade. The only way the commissioner can curb the specialist is to use his superior position of power. Hence the weapons of discipline and duty, austerity and accountability are pressed into service to show the subordinate his place in the pyramid of power. He always would do it, developing a mechanism of rules and regulations for transferring the place in the pyramid of power. Sooner or later, the specialist has to withdraw or surrender or adopt and attitude of indifference. The end result of the incompatibility of the specialist and the generalist is the uninspiring work environment in which only the psychophants would flourish and the sincere would stagnate.

Since these administrative services carry with them great power and prestige, pomp and show, they attract quite a number of specialists also. Doctors and engineers, scientists and scholars try their luck for these coveted services. Some of them do succeed also in making it to these services, although their selections take place, not on the strength of their special knowledge or training, but on the strength of the “secrets for success” which they acquire through training in the coaching academies. They opt for subjects, not for their speciality, but for their scorability. I have seen candidates with IIT degrees opting for Hindi, Tamil or Persian literature, which, with a few months’ preparation based on shortcut study books, fetch them more marks than would do any of the subjects of engineering. The secrets of selection apart, the moot point is that even if a few specialists manage to slip into these services, their talents and trainings are never utilised for the benefit of the state by the prudent politicians.

It is a matter of common knowledge that the prudent politicians would always make sure that an engineer is given to administer the department of animal husbandry, or that of fisheries, or that of forests, but never the one he sweated for years to know. By doing so, the honourable minister, who otherwise knows much less than the bureaucrat, can come across opportunities of catching the officer on the wrong foot. If he does not succeed there, he can always take recourse to his real power, the electorate who have elevated him to the status of the minister. At will, he can procure any number of complaints about some negligence on the part of the officer or an irregularity in his department.

The defenceless administrator has, at his disposal, hard choices to make. One is to confront, which can cost him his position of power and prestige, even more. If nothing else, the minister, or an M.L.A., or their supporters, can always get the officer transferred to a department where there is not much for the officer to look for. In other words, the infightings of the incompatibles in the arenas of administration are inevitable, given the premises of selections and elections adopted in the articles of our Constitution.

Thus, the recruitment of the creamy cadres of the Indian Administrative Service and the State Civil Service on the basis of the first degree qualification in any subject under the sun, ranging from architecture to astrology, Sanskrit to Persian, home science to homoeopathy, etc, and then distributing them in a continuously revolving mill of arbitrary and indiscriminate postings and transfers can only be called, to say the least, an uneducated system of administration. No wonder that despite all the advancement of learning and all the development of industry, we continue to remain a poor and backward nation. It is high time that we discarded the outdated colonial concept of the commission and replaced it by the contemporary concept of the Expert Committee for each department of the government. There is a need to disband both the common commission for all services as well as the common administrators for all departments. Both the commissions as well as the cadres need to be made specialised.

One of the immediate advantages of the new system will be that we shall have no conflicts of the incompatibles, for there will be no generalist administrators. The specialists will head the specialised departments. Another advantage will be an improvement in the quality of our administrators. Separate selections for each department, based on the special qualifications for each, will ensure a class of administrators who have received education and training for a particular field, and who will work until retirement in that field only. Still another, and most important, advantage of the new system would be that the prudent politician will not have the power to transfer these officers from one department to another. In fact, the institution of the transfer across the departmental territories would be completely abolished.

As for the internal transfers of the cadres, there too a committee of the senior officers in every department need to be given the powers of transfer, not the minister or legislator whose precious time needs to be spared solely for the job of legislation. These worthies need to spend more time in the Legislative Assembly than in the Secretariat. As of today, they do all else except the business of legislation. On the average, they sit together (or apart) for only a few days in the whole year for the business of legislation, and devote all the three hundred and odd days to meddling in the affairs of administration, functioning as road blocks in the path of progress.

The writer is a former Vice-Chancellor, Kurukshetra University.

MIDDLE

Forty winks, and some more
S. Raghunath

During a recent debate in the Lok Sabha on the report of the Administrative Reforms Commission, a member humorously asked if the government was considering sanctioning its employees a “sleeping allowance” on the lines of the stagnation increment and according to news agency reports, the reply from the treasury benches was “drowned” in laughter.

I have been talking to a Deputy Secretary in the Department of personnel. “An inter-ministerial committee of secretaries is at present examining the question of sanctioning a sleeping allowance” he said, “but no final decision has yet been taken as the matter requires further study.”

“In recent years, the problem of government employees losing out on their regular 23 hours of sleep has assumed alarming proportions and that has naturally demoralised them and you’ll agree, a demoralised bureaucracy can’t be expected to effectively implement development schemes to benefit the common man.”

“That’s true,” I agreed “but in view of the precarious resources position, is there a justification for a sleeping allowance?”

“Look,” the Deputy Secretary snapped irritably and it was obvious that he was losing out on his sleep, “you haven’t quite grasped the magnitude of the problem and let me cite a few instances.”

“As you know, government offices now open at 11 in the morning and that means our employees have to get up as early as 10.30 a.m. in order to be in their offices by 11 sharp. Just take a measure of the amount of sleep they’re losing by having to get up at an unearthly hour of 10.30 in the morning!”

“Terrible,” I said.

“The lot of government employees is unenviable, said the Deputy Secretary,” I’ve here a representation from the All-India Confederation of Case Workers and Pen-Pushers and it says inter alia, that its members’ nerves are shot to pieces, what with incessant chatter of their colleagues in adjoining cabins, the clutter of tea and coffee cups in the staff canteens and the noise of visitors tramping in the corridors outside and as a result, they have had to reduce their afternoon siesta from 4 hours to 3 hours and 59 minutes. Just look at the amount of sleep they’re losing in the bargain!”

“Atrocious,” I said “I’m surprised that public administration in the country hasn’t collapsed, what with public servants losing out on their sleep right, left and centre.”

“You’ve seen only the tip of the iceberg,” the Deputy Secretary said,” because of austerity measures and general belt-tightening our staff canteens are forced to buy inferior quality tea and coffee powder and our employees have no alternative but to drink thin, watery tea and coffee and what happens? They stay wide awake during office hours, losing out on precious sleep.”

“I’m sorry I questioned the wisdom of sanctioning government employees a sleeping allowance “I apologised. “I can see now that no one deserves it more, but just one last question. The Reserve Bank, in a recent report has said that 2001-02 was a sleeping year for the Indian economy. Is there any possibility of the country’s economy getting a sleeping allowance?”

“No possibility whatever,” said the Deputy Secretary “the country’s economy sleeping is none of our concern.”

“So I thought,” I said.

PAU needs drastic structural changes
A. S. Bindra

There is need to give at least minimum funds to PAU to complete its research projects. Some of the projects are being run on contingency grants that were fixed decades ago. Not even 10 per cent of the projects have sufficient contingency. Over 97 per cent of the university budget is spent on meeting salaries. There are expenses like petrol, telephones, office stationery, electricity bills, uniforms, maintenance of buildings etc.

The expenses on research for which the university has its locus standi are less than 2 per cent. Providing sufficient contingent grant to scientists will necessitate at least doubling of the funds being given to the university. The previous government promised only a minor fraction of the same and then backed out from that too.

The internal changes that should be made by PAU to improve the situation include (a) scrapping of research projects of low priorities, (b) merging of redundant departments, (c) merging of redundant colleges and (d) delinking the service conditions of the active field scientists from those of the ordinary Punjab Government employees.

The university has rightly merged some minor departments. A surgical removal of flab that the body of PAU has developed is bound to create a lot of hue and cry from the vested quarters.

Most departments as they exist today were created to facilitate research when only about 10% of its budget was spent on salaries and 90% of the budget was for research and development and not the other way round as is the picture now. Now when the research is so starved for funds, there is no justification for so many departments. When a redundant department is merged with another it adversely affects mostly the baboos and they are the real decision-makers in the university. As in most of the government departments they do their best to lengthen the red tape to justify their presence.

One can see the operation of Parkinson’s law at its best in these offices. If a teacher sends a paper to the Vice-Chancellor as many as 20 persons handle it. PAU that claims to be modern follows some of the 18th century methods. For example peons are used to carry books and bulky record registers from the departmental offices to the office of the Auditor and back in spite having over 500 computers.

The others interested in the continuation of the status quo are the teachers who aspire to be the Head of the Department. Other staff does not mind if the entire office work is concentrated into a single office of the Dean of the college concerned.

It is not that only some departments are redundant. Some colleges need to be scrapped. The most glaring superfluity is the College of Basic Sciences. Here the aspirants for the job of Dean will not let that happen. Otherwise, why cannot the various departments of the College of Basic Sciences be merged with the College of Agriculture, as was the case before the formation of the university? When these colleges were created the scenario and the working condition of the university were vastly different. Then the entrance qualification of the students also was different which provided some sort of excuse of having a separate college although the main unstated purpose was to provide a job to a very influential scientist.

The second college that can be scrapped is the College of Home Science. A look into the employment potent l of its graduates or a survey of what its graduates are actually doing after graduation will speak of the utter misuse of resources and wastage of the time of youth.

In a number of agricultural colleges in India and abroad there are neither separate departmental offices nor so many departmental heads. Within PAU also the example of plant breeding is worth mentioning. The budget of this department is more than that of the College of Home Science and the College of Basic Sciences put together. Important crop improvement activities like breeding of wheat, rice, cotton, pulses, oilseeds and several others are conducted under the Department of Plant Breeding with one Head and one office only.

It should suffice to say that with the present setup in the agricultural universities, no worthwhile research is possible.

The pattern that is being suggested is nothing unusual. It is prevalent in many institutions in India and other developed or developing countries. The Vice-Chancellor of PAU needs political and administrative support in a big way. Will the new government provide that?

‘Treat contempt law with contempt’
Mukesh Jhangiani

The concept of contempt of court has come a long way since the very publication of any reference to what happened in England’s Parliament or in an English court of law was considered a criminal offence punishable by a stretch behind the bars.

For centuries, judges and MPs thought that letting people know what was going on behind the closed doors of those institutions could make their exercising power more complicated.

They held themselves to be competent to decide what to do and conducted their deliberations in private, the way company boards of directors do nowadays, arguing that those who had no vote had no need to know what was being decided in their name.

A breakthrough came as early as the 18th century when the British government tried but failed to keep a pioneering journalist from publishing reports on parliamentary proceedings. Through enactments in 1738 and 1771 Britain outlawed such publication, but attempts to arrest the journalist, John Wilkes, caused riots and the law was eventually changed.

In India, law defines contempt of court as a civil offence if it involves wilful disobedience to a court order or other process or breach of an undertaking given to a court. Under the Contempt of Court Act, 1971, criminal contempt involves publishing matter scandalising or lowering court’s authority or otherwise obstructing administration of justice.

Proven contempt is punishable with up to six months of simple imprisonment or up to Rs 2,000 in fine or both. An accused may be let off on apologising.

But law experts say contempt powers of the courts are far too wide and it is vital for the administration of justice to make truth and good faith valid defences in such cases.

Experts have been suggesting a review of the Contempt of Court Act, saying there has been a tendency to use the power for punishing persons for scandalising the court much too frequently.

Official figures released last month showed there were 67,626 contempt of court cases in high courts as against 55,737 in May 2000 — 11,889 new cases in such a short span.

In remarks published after he took over as Attorney General, Soli Sorabjee stressed amending the law of contempt. “If as a journalist you publish such and such judge is corrupt, you will be hauled up for contempt, even if you are ready to prove it with evidence”.

“The law does not allow any justification in contempt. If there is a serious challenge (in the Supreme Court) this may be regarded as an unreasonable restraint on the freedom of expression. How can we not allow a person to justify what he says is not contempt? If he fails, we will come down heavily on him. Otherwise the law of contempt operates as a cover for a corrupt judge.’’

More recently, senior advocate Fali Sam Nariman pointed out : “It would be absurd to say that although Article 124 (4) provides for the removal of a judge for proved misbehaviour, no one can offer proof of such misbehaviour except on pain of being sent to jail for contempt of court.

“This is a glaring defect in our judge-made law, that needs to be remedied — hopefully by the judges themselves; if not, reluctantly then by Parliament,’’ Nariman said delivering the C.L. Agarwal Memorial Law Lecture at Jaipur last December.

He said the contempt jurisdiction “is mercurial, unpredictable, capable of being exercised differently in different cases and by different judges in the same court.’’

Asserting that the law was certainly not ideal, he stressed that “truth and good faith must be reinstated as valid defences in the power to punish for contempt because they are vital for the future administration of justice.’’

Nariman urged judges not to use the contempt power to “discipline either the lawyer or the Press: this creates a needless conflict which could be avoided.’’

In handling litigants, he suggested, judges “treat contempt with benign neglect. In other words, treat contempt with contempt.’’

“The public, the men and women of the media, and lawyers are content to accept constraints imposed by th ed to accept ad hoc rules imposed according to the whims, vagaries and idiosyncrasies of individual judges,’’ he said. UNI

TRENDS & POINTERS

Older men make better lovers

Older men are better lovers and have fewer impotence problems than their younger counterparts with the “male menopause’’ a myth pedalled by drug companies to sell their products, according to a British psychologist. Dr Lorraine Boule from Sheffield University in northern England told the British Psychological Society conference that men became more skilled sexually as they get older. Sexual activity does diminish with age, but the quality should get better,’’ she said.

She dismissed as nonsense the idea that men needed testosterone as a hormone replacement therapy in the same way that some women take oestrogen to ease the effects of menopause.

The male menopause was a myth spread by drug firms to boost the multimillion dollar market for impotence treatment, she said.

“Life should really begin at 40 for those who have the right mindset,’’ she observed. Reuters

Row over breast cancer test

Programmes to encourage women to undergo mammography screening can reduce breast-cancer fatalities by more than a fifth, a study published in The Lancet says.

Cancer experts are embroiled in a verbal war over mammography, a low-dose x-ray that can identify small cancers several years before they develop into lumps detectable by the conventional methods of palpitation.

Nearly two dozen countries have embarked on major programmes to encourage women to und-ergo routine mammograms in order to detect any tumour in its earliest possible stages, thus enhancing their chance of survival.

But some say these expensive projects are not providing the hoped-for benefits and may even have negative effects by creating a climate of fear. AFP

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked together by violence.

— Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets: Cowley

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.

— Mahatma Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War

Human blood is heavy;

The man that has shed it

cannot run away.

— An African proverb

Murderers, in general, are people who are consistent, people who are obsessed with one idea and nothing else.

— Ugo Betti, Struggle Till Dawn

There is no sure foundation set on blood,

No certain life achieved by other’s death.

— William Shakespeare, King John, 4.2.104

Whom man kills,

him God restores to life.

— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

We kill everybody, my dear. Some with bullets, some with words and everybody with our deeds. We drive people into their graves, and neither see it or nor feel it.

— Maxim Gorky, Enemies

Violence ever defeats its own ends.... A gentle word, a kind look, a god-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.

— William Hazlitt (1778-1830), English critic and author

One should be merciful towards all jivas from his heart of hearts.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ramkali M1, page 940

He who does not injure anybody is received respectfully in the abode of the Lord.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, var Gauri M5, page 322

Himsa (violence) is one of the streams of fire.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Var Majh M1, page 147