November 8, 2011 – I came across the above headlines in the Mumbai Mirror today. After having served the Government of India for four decades, and observing how it, or rather those who subvert the entire system function, I was not surprised.

A high ranking officer, allegedly caught taking a bribe of Rs. 2 crores is back in his post after a 18 month deemed suspension. What is surprising is why and how ?

The same tabloid contains a news item that a bus conductor sacked for Rs. 119 gets his job back after 11 years. The charge against him was there was shortage of Rs. 119 in his cash. 

 The Facts

Back to our hero, Mahendra Singh Bali (59), a 1978-batch Indian Postal Service officer, then Chief Postmaster General of Maharashtra, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on February 25, 2010. for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 2 crores from a builder.

The CBI  took the action on the basis of complaint by Rita Shah, a former Mira-Bhayander corporator. According to the complaint, Bali had asked for the bribe to issue a No Objection Certificate for developing a 2,000-sq-mt plot in Mira Road, part of which was reserved for a post office.

According to reports, after Bali’s arrest last year, the CBI carried out searches of his office and residence in south Mumbai,  and found 34 lakh in Indian rupees, and foreign currency – $10,722, £3,050, 3,470 Euro – from four briefcases.
The CBI also seized laptops, and 45 bottles of imported liquor.

Further enquiries revealed that Bali owned several properties in Faridabad, Panchkula, Dwarka, Bhopal and Gurgaon. The CBI found that he had 22 bank accounts with a total balance of Rs 26 lakhs. The collective value of the properties is still to be evaluated.

Central Administrative Tribunal

Bali challenged his suspension before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Mumbai which ordered his reinstatement last week. On November 4, 2011, Bali  was reinstated as the Chief Postmaster General of West Bengal.

The reinstatement was ordered on a technical ground  -  violation of the central civil service rules. “This was a case of deemed suspension. In such cases, the suspension has to be reviewed in 90 days, and as this was not done, the initial order was rendered invalid before the law,”

The issue is not about Bali. Even though Bali is reinstated, proceedings and prosecution will continue.

What should be done

It is for the government, for the CBI and the CVC to find out who are the officers who did not follow the central civil service rules, who did not review the suspension in accordance with the law, and allowed the central administrative tribunal to pass the order it did.

Some one should find this out and take action against the concerned officers.
Otherwise, this sort of aberrations will continue….the guilty will continue to be back in their posts……….

Any one has any better suggestions ?

November 9, 2011

Someone in Delhi has read the news and the result….
Bali has again been suspended yesterday.

I belong to the 1968 batch of Indian Revenue Service, senior to her in age and experience by several years.
A petty clerk, or for that matter, any other employee, both in the private and government sector, is dismissed from service for a single instance of similar over (or false) billing. Here we have a series of systematic false billings.

For all I know, the allegations may not be correct. I would be extremely happy if they are proved to be false.
Or they may be partly distorted.
But Kiran Bedi owes it to everyone to disclose the facts and come out clean. It is not sufficient for her and her friends to say, “ let the authorities make any enquiry against her and hang her  if she is guilty “.

Coming to the allegations.
What are the allegations? What are the facts? And why Kiran Bedi should disclose details of the concerned expenses?

It is a fundamental expectation that those who fight for transparency should themselves be transparent. Otherwise, they lose the moral authority to be leaders. The public will discard them like rotten maggots.

For the moment, the allegations may not prove corruption, but they certainly demand and merit transparency. Kiran Bedi should make public the relevant facts.

My own conclusions (which of course, may not be fully or even partly incorrect) are as follows:

1.      Kiran Bedi did ask for, and received, reimbursement of her inflated air travel fares, consistently and systematically, over several years. These were probably made on the basis of estimates (or proforma invoices) conveniently supplied by Anil Bal, her travel agent and co-trustee.

2.    Later, Kiran Bedi made payments for her travel expenses to Anil Bal, her travel agent and co-trustee on the basis of actuals, which of course are far less.

3.    Kiran Bedi claims that all the amounts she received, including some from other activities, like books, etc. went to the trust.

4.     The question arises whether or not Kiran Bedi attended the meetings and conferences in her personal capacity. If she did, then the entire excess of receipts less actual expenses would constitute her personal income. Of course, she can make donations to NGOs and claim exemption as per law. But all the receipts and expenses must be shown in her personal income tax returns.

5.     On the other hand, if she attended the meetings, etc. on behalf of her NGO, were the activities justified by the objects of the NGO.

6.    In any event, claiming air fare on the basis of false bills, I repeat false bills, is a serious crime.  The motives are not relevant. Robbing the rich to help the poor would constitute the same serious offence. The law is as simple as this.

7.    Kiran Bedi says enquire and hang me if I am guilty. Great words !  Who will file a complaint against you and invite problems?  Every prudent person will just keep mum.  And even if you are guilty, you cannot be hanged. There is no such penalty for such financial crimes. And everyone knows that an enquiry takes a long time……

8.    Kiran Bedi, if you have any sense of self respect, you should publish full details of all the concerned lectures and talks; names and addresses of the invitors, details of the expenses claimed, received and incurred, and on what basis you claimed the inflated expenses. You should also publish full details of your own personal contributions to the trust. After all what is there to hide?

9.     By the way, I went through the web site of her trust – India Vision Foundation.

http://www.indiavisionfoundation.org/donation-gallery.asp

There are no details of the various donations received…only a long list of names.
If this is what transparency is all about for our leaders, God help this nation.

Sanjiv Bhatt, Police and Politics.

I have just seen the following article on a popular website.
It is most distressing and dangerous.

IPS officer Sanjiv R. Bhatt suspended

Posted by: “Anjlee Pandya”
anjleepandya@gmail.com
Fri Aug 12, 2011 10:54 pm (PDT)

I have never met Sanjiv Bhatt.
In terms of service, he is junior to me by 20 years. I was offered the Indian Police Service, but I joined the Indian Revenue Service for the simple reason my mother did not like the idea of my joining the police force.
But Sanjiv Bhatt’s conduct is hardly something which can be justified by any one – either morally or legally.

Members of the All India Services – the IAS and the IPS are a privileged lot. They are appointed by the Central Government and allotted to a particular state. They draw their salaries and allowances from that state. Even though they enjoy certain safeguards against dismissal, etc., they are under the day to day administrative control of the concerned state.

Of late, IPS officers like Sanjiv Bhatt have been mixing up politics with their official duties, hogging the media and making all kinds of allegations.

Serving officers should not address the media unless the conduct rules permit them to do so. Of course, they can and should approach the High Courts and Supreme Court, wherever necessary.

The several allegations in the above paragraphs against Sanjiv Bhatt are prima facie sufficient to justify disciplinary against him. He must remember that if he himself is thoroughly indisciplined, how can he expect, demand and get unsquinted obedience from his subordinates.
They will behave in the same irresponsible manner and the system would collapse.
And if the allegations are correct, no court can support his stand.

First, before fighting against the State, Sanjiv Bhatt or any other officer himself should be clean in all respects.
Otherwise, he will end up a hapless loser the same way as Baba Ramdev.

Sanjiv Bhatt, you are treading on dangerous turf.
You will end up a sad loser.
And in the end, it will be your wife and children who will suffer.

The year 2010 ended leaving India riddled with a spate of corruption cases.
There seems to be a race for the top “I am the most corrupt” slot in India. I am not talking about the top politicians.  They are a breed apart.
 
Next to the politicians in queue, are our top bureaucrats……the IAS officers who rule the country…who advise the top politicians, help them loot the nation and share the loot themselves.

There seem to be a race for the top slot.
Who is the most corrupt?
Who has amassed the largest wealth?

December 2010

Neera Yadav – a 1971 Batch IAS officer from Bulandsahar –  and.ex Chief Secretary of U. P. – was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment. The court found her guilty in a 2002 land allocation case during her term as Chairperson of Noida Development Authority.

In 1997, the UP IAS officers association polled her one of the “most corrupt officers” of the state.

Yet, in spite of a barrage of corruption charges against her, the Mulayam Singh Yadav government appointed her Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh in 2005.
However, in an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court intervened and directed the UP Government to remove her from the post. She is the country’s first IAS officer to be removed from the post in this manner.
Neera Yadav took voluntary retirement in 2007.

Her husband, Mahendra Singh, a former police officer, was a minister in the BJP government in the state. Singh later joined the Samajwadi Party.
Both Singh and Neera Yadav joined the BJP in 2009.

April 2010

O Ravi, a 1983 batch IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, who is joint secretary in the Disaster Management division of the Home Ministry, and a native of Davangere, was raided by the CBI which conducted searches on 36 premises of the official and nine distillery owners in Daman, Mumbai and New Delhi.

Ravi has served at the Centre in various departments, including the ministries of Railways, Civil Aviation, Commerce and Industries and Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises for over nine years. He has also served in the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation for a brief period. He is in the Home Ministry since 2007.

It is alleged that one of the distillers paid Rs 25 lakhs to Ravi to get the present Administrator of Daman transferred out.
The CBI has registered a case against Ravi, two Excise inspectors and one sub-inspector at Daman for their connivance with six liquor manufacturers (Khemani, Royal, Jupiter, Krimpy, Silver Star and Dharmesh) based in the Union Territory, and causing a loss of Rs 340 crore to the Daman Administration.

February  2010However, the two cases mentioned above are peanuts.
The honours for being the most corrupt must go the IAS couple – Arvind  and Tinu Joshi.

Both Arvind and Tinu are 1979-batch IAS Officers of the Madhya Pradesh cadre. They have held important positions in the Centre since the late 80s.

Tinu served as Deputy Secretary in the PMO from July 1, 1988 to January 1, 1990 while Arvind was Joint Secretary in the Defence Ministry during the 1999 Kargil hostilities.

The Income Tax Department conducted searches at their residence in Bhopal leading to the recovery of currency notes worth Rs 3 crores. Further follow up action has unearthed the biggest corruption case in Indian history.

A 7000 page appraisal report prepared by the Income Tax department says that in the past three years the Joshis did futures trading worth Rs 312 crores. It says that they started investing through Standard Chartered-STCI Capital Markets Limited from April 3, 2007. On June 1, 2007 they had invested in shares of 111 big companies and purchased 10,000 to 50, 000 shares in each company. They have also acquired 25 flats and 400 acres of agricultural and non-agricultural land.

Most of these land dealings are benami. Over 100 acres of land have been purchased in the names of Arvind Joshi’s NRI sisters, Vibha and Abha.

The Income Tax Department has already started proceedings to attach the properties under Section 281-B of the Income Tax Act 1961.
The Enforcement Directorate has also started proceedings against the Joshis (including Arvind Joshi’s NRI sisters, Vibha and Abha) for violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) 1999.

But the final action has to be taken by the state government.

Role of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)

What has the CVC been doing all the time?
Is it not their duty to collect information about corrupt people and take appropriate action themselves?

After all, to err is human.
But to accept a mistake and correct it is divine.

In this glaring case of unprecedented injustice, the Supreme Court Judges made serious mistakes, not once, but three times. As a result, three innocent persons languished in jail for several months.

October 1991

In October 1991, a Sessions Court in Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh convicted Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir (along with four others  - Sugar Singh, Laxman, Onkar and Ramesh) and sentenced them to 6 years imprisonment on charges of rioting and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

January 2003

The eight convicts appealed to the Gwalior bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court In January 2003, the High Court acquitted all the accused.

The Madhya Pradesh Government accepted the acquittal of Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir; but filed appeal before the Supreme Court against the acquittal of the other four.

November 7, 2008

A bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat, C.K. Thakker and L.S. Panta set aside the High Court order and held all the eight accused guilty in the case, even though

• The Madhya Pradesh High Court had acquitted  Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir;
•  The Madhya Pradesh Government had accepted the verdict and had not filed any appeal against it, and
• The issue relating to these four persons – Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir – was not before the Supreme Court (Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir were not even parties to the case).

Bhoja, Pooran and Balvir surrendered and were put back inside the jail.

March 9, 2010

Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir  filed a review petition for reconsideration of the matter. The matter went to the same bench, which through another quirk of fate, released the four other persons instead of Bhoja, Pooran, Balvir and Raghuvir.

April 20, 2010

On April 20, Aftab Ali Khan, Advocate for the four accused pointed out the mistake to a bench comprising of  the Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and three senior most judges, Justices S H Kapadia, Altamas Kabir and R V Raveendran. The Bench promised to examine the matter in May.

April 22, 2010

This matter was widely reported by the media.
In an unprecended move, the Bench comprising of the Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and three senior  most judges, Justices S H Kapadia, Altamas Kabir and R V Raveendran, convened on an urgent basis, called the lawyers and passed order  “acquitting” Bhoja, Puran and Balbir, who had been languishing in jail due to two wrong consecutive orders passed by the Supreme Court in November 2008 and March 2010.

My humble request

At last a serious error has been corrected and justice has been done to the accused. Or has it been done ?

**    Was it not the duty of the Govt. prosecution to point out on each occasion that the courts orders were wrong, that wrong persons were being sent to jail ?

***  Was it not the duty of the Judges to do their home work ?

*** Was it not the duty of the Present Bench of the Supreme Court  to award damages on their own ?

Do the Supreme Court judges really expect the poor accused to engage in one more round of litigation for damages. Would they have the money and energy to file a case at all.

The Supreme Court should have been magnanimous to award damages to the wronged persons. They can pay such damages from the funds of the Supreme Court or direct the Govt. to pay the same.

But in my humble view, the Supreme Court should award the damages.
That is the least they can do now to rectify all the wrongs done.

Dr. Binoy Gupta, Retd. Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Chennai

Even God cannot save this country………  
Supreme Court of India, New Delhi, August 5, 2008

The Supreme Court was hearing a case relating to unauthorised occupation of Government accommodation.

The Bench had suggested that the Government should amend the law to make unauthorised occupation a criminal offence.

Additional Solicitor General, Amarender Saran, told the court that the Union Government had decided not to amend Section 441 IPC (criminal trespass) for prosecuting squatters of Government accommodation in the country. The Government took the stand that the existing provisions under the Public Premises Act were sufficient to evict those unauthorisedly occupying Government accommodation.
The Government further claimed that out of 99,100 government houses, only 300 and odd were under unauthorised occupation for which action had been taken to evict them. This did not satisfy the apex court which said the Government does not have the guts to take on the offenders.

Some Observations of the Bench of the Supreme Court comprising
Justices B N Aggrawal and G S Singhvi.

·         We are fed up with this Government. They don’t have the guts to differ with the opinion of the clerks.
·         Even God will not be able to save this country. In India, even if God comes down, he cannot change our country. Our country’s character has gone. We are helpless.
·         You complain about judicial activism when you are in power. When you are not in power, you come to us for remedy.
·         PILs are being filed by people who are vexed with the approach of the Government on various issues.

Insensitive officials need regular flogging……..

Supreme Court of India, New Delhi, August 8, 2008

Those who have experienced the problems involved in going to a police station and filing a FIR (First Information Report) will advise you never to visit a police station.
You will be advised not to file a FIR and treated worst than a criminal.

A Ghaziabad resident, Lalita Kumari, had to run from pillar to post for registering an FIR after her teenaged daughter was abducted early this year.

Even after registering an FIR on the orders of the Ghaziabad Superintendent of Police on May 11, the local police did not try to search for her daughter. Instead they threatened her to withdraw the FIR.
While hearing this matter, on July 14, 2008, Justice Agrawal had noted his “personal experience” while working as the judge of the Patna High Court, the Chief Justice of Orissa High Court and as Judge of the apex court – that despite the Supreme Court’s strict instruction for prompt registration of FIRs, the concerned police authorities do not register FIRs unless some direction is given by the Chief Judicial Magistrate or the high court or this court.

“Further experience shows that even after orders are passed by the concerned courts for registration of the case, the police does not take the necessary steps. And when matters are brought to the notice of the inspecting judges of the high court during the course of inspection of courts and superintendents of police are taken to task, then only FIRs are registered,” Justice Agrawal had noted.

In a large number of cases, investigations do not commence even after registration of FIRs, and in cases like the present one steps are not taken for recovery of the kidnapped person or apprehending the accused person, Justice Agrawal said.

Justice Agrawal had made some suggestionsfor corrective measures to deal with the callous approach of police in filing criminal cases on the complaints of people.

The bench had suggested that if the police fail to file a criminal case, then the citizen may approach the nearest judicial magistrate, who could direct police to register a First Information Report (FIR).

After this, if the police still fail to register an FIR without any proper reason, the magistrate would be justified in launching contempt to court proceedings against the erring police officer and send him to jail for defying court orders.

Only two states – Uttar Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, filed their responses to the suggestion.

Justice Agrawal was very harsh.

Some Observations of the Bench of the Supreme Court comprising
Justices B N Aggrawal and G S Singhvi.
·         Government officials are simply insensitive to the suffering of millions of people across the country. They think they live in ‘Ram Rajya’ (ideal rule). They think it’s their ‘swarajya’ (own self-rule, not for the people.
·         This is their style of functioning. They need regular huntering or flogging by  the court to be made to work said.

The bench ordered the chief secretaries and the police chiefs of all states and union territories to file their responses to the court’s July 14 suggestion within two weeks failing which they would be personally summoned to the court and taken to task.

Recommendation

Wake up bureaucrats.  Supreme Court is watching you.