Open Forum
New
Delhi, 18 February 2014
SC
Verdicts
ENFORCING
JUDGEMENTS CRITICAL
By Dhurjati
Mukherjee
Three cheers to the Supreme Court.
In the past few years, the nation’s apex court has been coming out with some
landmark judgments, be it on scams, environmental violations and the lack of
effective implementation of laid down rules and regulations, illegal mining,
rape and sexual violence and now recently on forfeiture of property.
Undeniably, these rulings have a significant bearing in our life and society
per se and are definitely aimed at those who do not follow the law of the land
to gain extra privilege. Importantly, these judgments have been aimed at
protecting the economically weaker sections and the low income groups, who
tragically are most-exploited and the worst sufferers.
In its recent judgement, the Supreme
Court ruled that the Government would be well justified and within its rights
to deprive a person of his property, if he cannot explain the legitimate source
of funding to acquire the same. “If a subject acquires property by means which
are not legally approved, the sovereign would be perfectly justified to deprive
such persons of the enjoyment of such ill-gotten wealth”, a bench of Justices
H. L. Gokhala and J. Chelameswar stated.
Clearly, unaccounted money cannot be
legalized by acquiring property and those who indulge in it need to be punished
by depriving them of that property that was bought using unaccounted money
under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property)
Act 1976 and other relevant provisions of the law. The bench very rightly
observed that it could not be treated as double jeopardy banned under Article
20 of the Constitution which bars prosecution of a person for more than once
for an offence.
Further, the bench stated that the
non-conviction based asset forfeiture model, also known as civil forfeiture
legislation, had gained currency in many countries of the world like the US,
UK, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Australia etc. and it needed to be enforced
in India so that illegal wealth/property is not regularized and the corrupt and
their descendants are not allowed to enjoy the same.
The present ruling, if implemented
in a proper manner, would indeed go a long way in curbing black money and
unearthing unaccounted wealth obviously made through dubious means.
Additionally, indirectly it would be a means to control evasion of taxes, which
is pretty rampant in the country.
Take, for instance, another recent
development of the apex court which questioned the Centre’s insistence to list
out the governance benefits in the past 15 years by re-enacting a provision
after it was struck down as illegal to give protection from inquiry in
corruption cases of bureaucrats. The five-member bench specifically drew the
attention to Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, which bars courts
from taking cognizance of an offence against public servants without prior
sanction from the Government. The Supreme Court very rightly questioned: “Do
you want governance where everyone is free to take money? How can protection be
given to those who have disproportionate assets?”
But unfortunately the bias in our
system is geared towards the rich and the powerful, who enjoy the privilege of
getting more or less everything done in their favour through corrupt means.
They enjoy the best facilities and resort to different forms of exploitation.
As such, good governance, which is being much talked about, is plainly lacking
in the system. It has to be enforced so that the nexus between a section of
politicians and police officials is not allowed to flourish, as some cases
suggest.
Take for instance, the Reddy
brothers who were ministers in the previous BJP Government in Karnataka and had
reportedly amassed thousands of crores of illegal money by exporting iron ore.
While the apex court verdict only stopped illegal money it did not dwell into
the forfeiture of this unaccounted wealth, which would have been a double blow.
This apart, there are umpteen such cases where action is yet to be taken
against those who illegally amassed huge wealth and/or property. The system is
clearly too slow.
The concern for efficient governance
not just in India
but all over the world can only become a reality if rules and regulations are
strictly adhered to. Development can move ahead faster if there is a basic
transformation of the political system in the country, signs of which are
emerging today. Perhaps, the role of the judiciary in cleansing the system
would gradually lessen, if the Executive carries out its responsibility in the
right earnest. This apart, the economically poor could look to the elusive good
governance coming their way.
One may mention here a recent letter
of Bill Gates who has predicted that by 2025 there would almost be no poor
countries left in the world. According to him, in another decade no country
will be as poor as the World Bank classifies as low income today, even after
adjustment for inflation. But though per capita income may increase, it needs
to be seen what is the percentage increase of the low income and economically
weaker sections in India and
other Third World countries compared to the
upper echelons of society.
Even after landmark verdicts of the
apex court and various high courts, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) will
fall far short of targets by 2015. In spite of various programmes that have
been announced in the past few years, the impact on the targeted beneficiaries
has not been satisfactory, obviously because of lack of effective
implementation. Even the intervention of the judiciary did not have the desired
effect. In fact, judicial activism has angered the political establishment
because it openly revealed the lacuna in the functioning of the
system.
Both how will things change? The
common but educated electorate no longer wants politicians to rule the country
but would prefer technocrats, social activists and journalists with a clean
image to shoulder the task of governance. This is because the poor and the
economically weaker sections have been neglected over the years and a basic
transformation of the system is imperative at this juncture. It is widely
believed that people like Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal are expected to bring
this change and the urban poor and the middle class are looking to the Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) to bring about the necessary transformation in the coming
years. The nation’s capital, has been an example. Will others follow
suit?---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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