Vice-president M Hamid Ansari today said steps for ethical norms in the executive, legislature and judiciary have been "inadequate".
Terming corruption in public life as a threat to national security, vice president M Hamid Ansari today said steps for ethical norms in the executive, legislature and judiciary have been "inadequate".
"We have in place a loosely structured code of conduct for the three sets of actors in the public service domain - civil service, legislature and judiciary," he said delivering the VN Tewari memorial lecture on "Private Ethics and Public Morality" here.
Ansari said legal and administrative steps taken so far to improve ethical norms in the executive, the legislature and the judiciary have been felt to be inadequate and there was need for a more purposeful and result-oriented approach.
"Corruption in public life is today a threat to national security and we have to deal with it accordingly," he said.
He said "escalating levels of corruption" in various segments of the economy was resulting in largescale generation of black money, serious economic offences and fraud, and money laundering besides funding of terrorist activities. These have
created a grave situation.
Ansari also referred to observations made in the Report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission which, he said, had acknowledged that governance is the weak link in the quest for prosperity and equity.
Quoting the report, Ansari said corruption had been aggravated by three factors - propensity to exercise power arbitrarily, enormous asymmetry of power in society and policies that unintentionally put the citizen at the mercy of the state.
In a vast majority of cases of bribery, the citizen is a victim of extortion and is compelled to pay bribe to get a service to which he or she is entitled, he said while outlining the observations of the report.
Ansari said that a healthy spirit of optimism about the ability of public service to serve public interest is an essential element of public morality.
He said the courage of conviction required to take decisions and sustain them despite opposition is essential for effective political and social action. "Such courage needs to be summoned in simple issues such as refusing favours to friends and family or in momentous decisions of peace and war."
Ansari said public morality demands pursuit and dispensation of justice in an impartial, quick and even an impersonal manner. "Injustice is a powerful motivator of human emotions, usually of rebellion and destruction".
Ansari said that a sense of empathy and compassion towards human suffering is needed for dealing with moral ambiguities in public policy and to prioritise resources and actions.
The government, he noted, accord primacy to national security, dispensation of justice, maintenance of law and order, social and economic development and ensuring public welfare. "Ethical precepts are rarely mentioned in specific terms," he added.
Speaking on the occasion, Punjab governor Shivraj Patil said, "At times we fought to attain freedom, now we are fighting to overcome difficulties created by poverty, to overcome economic difficulties".
Congress MP Manish Tewari, son of late VN Tewari, said a moral crisis was existing in the political system.
He said the number of billionaires and poor are increasing at the same time in the country and stressed the need for drawing a line between vulgarity and value systems.
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