Will Commonwealth Games scamsters be ever booked?

The Supreme Court (SC) has never minced words in declaring that corruption is eating away vitals of governance and that it’s a cancer that must be rooted out.

There have been hard-hitting judgments by SC in cases relating to corruption by small fries such as peons. It has even jailed these pigmies.

But, strangely, none of the members of the political executive that rules the country has so far slept in a dingy cell of a jail. The warnings issued by SC in corruption cases seem to have hardly affected them, as some recent events will tell.

Whether the perpetrators of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) scam will be ever booked is a million-dollar question. Whether the master of 2G spectrum allocation at a throwaway price who took home Rs1.70 lakh crore will be tried under the law is again a billion-dollar question.

There have been several instances of the politically influential facing the cumbersome process of law for decades. They have been charged with looting the exchequer or misappropriating public money for personal benefit.

There is no dearth of court cases, such as those involving former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal, former Maharashtra CM AR Antulay, former Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa and former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad, which are referred to as precedents.

Ironically, none of the alleged corrupt leaders has so far been put in jail, which Mahatma Gandhi said was a reformatory centre as he stoutly propagated “hate the sin, not the sinner”.

What is not in dispute, however, is the reputation of CBI and other central investigating agencies. SC can take a cue from the proceedings in the Jain hawala case in which the court kept a close watch on investigations and brought the case to its logical conclusion.

It didn’t matter howsoever high a person named in the Jain diaries was. It was proved that the law is above all. That they were let off by a trial court is another story.