Whistleblowers are not protected here

Corruption in Indian bureaucracy is no news. The Transparency International report placed India 85th among 180 countries in 2007 as against 72 in 2006. Last week, the Singapore-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) labelled India the worst country in Asia to do business. In 2008, the World Bank had placed India in the 180th position, in the list of 181countries, when it came to official corruption. Jayashree JN, who floated a website to help her whistleblower husband, MN Vjayakumar, IAS, tells DNA that an overwhelming majority of Karnataka’s civil servants are corrupt.
 
The PERC has rated India as the worst among Asian countries in bureaucratic corruption. Your comments.
It has rated Indian bureaucracy at 9.45 on a score of 10. (1 being the least and 10 the most corrupt). It also says India is the only country whose rank is getting poorer every year. This is a shameful situation for the once-revered civil services.  Bureaucrats have access to a wide range of state machinery and they often manipulate the system for their personal gains. The corrupt babus put the blame on politicians. But, it’s the other way round. Fed by ill-gotten benefits, politicians join hands with bureaucrats.

Who’s the bigger culprit in promoting corruption, the Centre or the state?
India was the last country to sign the UN convention against corruption. This in itself is extremely disgraceful. As controller of all-India services, the central government is more at fault. In January 2009, Parliament made amendments diluting the anti-corruption measures. However there is some protection for the whistleblowers at the central level but nothing exists at the state level. In Karnataka, even empowering the Lokayukta has not happened.

Now, corruption in lower judiciary is prominently discussed in surveys. How to keep the judiciary out of the corruption loop?
Judiciary has no transparent administration and it’s the cause of judicial corruption. It is not enough to hear cases in open courts, but there should also be a mechanism of receiving complaints against corrupt judges and punishing them. Contempt laws should be modified to encourage reporting corrupt practices of judges.

Who would you put on top of the corruption list?
Bureaucracy. Using the RTI Act, I have found that files relating to grave matters of corruption are made to disappear. One chief secretary told in my presence that he shields the corrupt, while another chief secretary sent a message stating that if I don’t stop being finicky, I may come to harm. Top bureaucrats promote corruption and shield the corrupt. Politicians, businessmen, police are all too happy with a bureaucracy which shields the corrupt. From my experience in dealing with bureaucrats, more than 80 % of IAS officers in Karnataka are corrupt.