Commentary/ T V R Shenoy
On His Majesty's Service
There are some German names that even we in India recognise -- words
such as 'Mercedes', and 'BMW', and (unfortunately!) 'Marx'. I
wish one more would be added to that list -- 'Nuremberg'.
It is a small town in Germany, the merest pygmy beside a Berlin,
a Hamburg, or a Munich. Nonetheless, for several months in 1945
Nuremberg was the centre of the world's attention. Because it
was there that an international tribunal called the Nazi warlords
to answer for their crimes.
Of course, by then Adolf Hitler himself was dead. But 21
of his principal henchmen were still alive to stand trial. Three
were released, seven got various terms of imprisonment, and 11
were sentenced to death.
The Nuremberg trials have earned a place in the law books for
one thing. It firmly established the principle that every man
is responsible for his own actions. It is not acceptable to say,
"I committed the crime because boss told me to do so!"
That principle hasn't been challenged for over 50 years. Until
now.
Narasimha Rao's lawyer, R K Anand, offered just that defence to
get his client off the hook in the St Kitts forgery. Rao claimed
he had done nothing more than obey orders coming from the
prime minister's office. Amazingly, Justice Ajit Bharihoke accepted
this plea, and dismissed the charges against Rao.
Let us not get bogged down in discussing the legal aspects of
this judgment. (Did anyone, for instance, take evidence from
R K Dhawan, the man who allegedly passed on the orders to Rao?)
Let us just take a look at the ethics.
Because Rao's success seems to have set off a chain of copycats.
And it isn't just politicians who are doing so, but bureaucrats
too. Coming down from generalities to the specifics, I refer to
Revenue Secretary N K Singh.
The revenue secretary is in the eye of a storm for his controversial
decisions in the Ashok Jain case. He is being accused of putting
undue pressure on the Enforcement Directorate to bend the rules
for the Times of India proprietor.
By now, I am sure everybody knows of the decision to unleash the
Intelligence Bureau upon the Enforcement Directorate for so-called
'leaks'. With denials and counter-denials flying around, N K Singh's
role is rather murky. But there is another instance where the
revenue secretary's involvement is quite clear.
On the night of January 4, 1997, he woke
up to a call from then prime minister H D Deve Gowda. It
seemed that Ashok Jain was at the airport and Enforcement Directorate
officers had stopped him from flying abroad.
Deve Gowda wanted to know if the revenue secretary could make
life easier for the media baron. N K Singh did just that. And
Ashok Jain went off, supposedly for medical treatment.
Neither Deve Gowda nor N K Singh deny all this happened.
But the former prime minister adds that the civil servant kept
him in the dark about one crucial point.
The ED wasn't bothering Ashok Jain on a whim.
It was stopping him because a raid on his house in Delhi had thrown
up several questions that needed to be answered. Singh knew this, but kept quiet.
To date, Singh hasn't explained why he didn't ask Deve Gowda to
reconsider. He hasn't explained why he, an experienced bureaucrat,
didn't ask for orders in writing. A mere verbal expression of
a prime minister's desire was enough for the revenue secretary
to bend rules.
"The prime minister ordered me to authenticate a forgery," says Narasimha Rao, and that is enough to get him off. "The
prime minister wanted me to see if I could help Ashok Jain," says Singh, and that seems to be good enough for
everybody.
Isn't anybody in India concerned with responsibility? Public servants,
whether ministers or bureaucrats, are responsible to the public
whose taxes pay their salaries. They have a responsibility to
uphold the law without fear or favour.
Neither Rao nor Singh acted like responsible men, capable of exercising
their own judgement. They acted like mindless robots, programmed
to obey their master's voice. And the worst part is that nobody
thinks it out of place.
What happens if all the accused in the Bofors case blame Rajiv
Gandhi? Do they all go off free? If that seems ridiculous, take
another look at Rao's defence!
"The master said so!" wasn't an acceptable excuse for
the world in 1945. Why should we accept it in India in 1997?
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