Welfare states, guided by pure democracy, do not suffer from crises arising out of abuse of public authority. A simple tale may be cited here to explain the idea better. During the monarchical times, there were hardly huge states with innumerable people and multiple departments of administration that could go wrong on the performance front. In most cases, the monarch used to be the chief executive, the chief of police, the chief general and, above all, the principal judge in all matters.
It so happened that a state property was found to have been grabbed by a clever subject. He was nabbed, and while deposing, he told the court that a senior minister was bribed to get him the piece of property, without which he could never have been able to acquire anything.
The king listened to all, took two minutes to ponder over the matter and, after consulting his courtiers, pronounced the judgment: The ordinary subject to be caned in public six times and the senior minister to be thrown in jail for life.
The people forgot who stole the land, but there was a huge outcry against the most inhuman treatment meted out to the senior minister. The monarch held a public meeting to explain: The ordinary citizen is ignorant of law and likely to err on conduct.
But the minister is well-versed with laws and highly expected to ensure no illegal activity goes unpunished. The state pins all trust in him in discharging duties to the best of ability maintaining utmost integrity. Hence, the minister is a bigger criminal than the ordinary subject.
He abused power, breached trust and conspired against the state. The monarch further said that he was rather merciful because the senior minister had a praiseworthy track record earlier. So he is not being sent to the gallows.
lastly, he ruled that any public official needs to be punished so exemplarily as to create the greatest fear among all potential offenders. The Odisha ‘land grab’ story is unforgivably peculiar. Over the decades ever since the 1980s, most preciously scarce land has been slipping from the people to the thieves.
The scam committed by Kalpataru et al is only a case in point. The bureaucrats, doctors, media people and even judges of the High Court have stolen land because they have told lies, and the executive, without any prerogative authority, has doled out people’s property to friends and relatives and themselves through spouses, children, relatives and friends.
law is crystal clear that affidavits with false information, particularly those furnished by people with State authority should land offenders in jail for as long as seven years with fine.But most unfortunately, no one seems to be keen to have the thieves criminally implicated. The Chief Minister, famous globally as the cleanest, does not respond to the issue at all.
The Government routinely expresses a desire to have the scam investigated by a committee headed by a bureaucrat who fortunately has begun showing results. The so-called civil society to which NGOs with vested interests claim to belong, have chosen to keep their lips sewed mainly because most of them do not know the law or are spineless to tell the bitter truth in public.
They are perpetually busy planning ‘money pot-yielding’ activities. Some of them have grabbed land too without having shown any truly noble purpose. The civil society, which is expected to uphold the foremost keystone principle of “rule of law”, has never reacted to the scams or grabs as illegal and unacceptable.
Not one big NGO has made a public statement or moved courts by way of a public interest litigation case.
The law-offending land distributor is the bigger criminal than the recipient. And if the recipient enjoys any State authority, he or she must be treated as the worst criminal for unforgivable breach of trust and most horrible conspiracy against the State.
Kalpataru Das, Pranab Balabantray and Sanjay Dasburma et al should have been chasing mosquitoes infesting the dingy, dark prison cells. Instead, they are still eating good food and sleeping on soft beds without hiding here and there.law enforcement agencies, directly under the executive control and supervision, are not being able to muster enough courage to swoop on the culprits. The ‘clean’ Chief Minister has been clinging to the ‘Home portfolio’ ever since the first day. He cannot even blame the lenient Home Minister because he himself is the one.
Successive UD Ministers from the Congress, BJP and BJD folds have abused power and squandered people’s property and are still roaming the streets as if nothing punishable has ever occurred.
Very painfully, the Idco land specifically meant for industries only has been stolen by a private elitist sport outfit in Bhubaneswar.More shockingly, there are trusts which have stolen vast stretches of people’s property in the name of social service without revealing that huge amounts of funds keep flowing by way of grant and donation for spending on the poor beneficiaries.
If hauled up, the founders spend people’s money to hold rallies and agitations to draw public sympathy. Unwittingly, celebrity-status citizens too walk into the traps and turn spokespersons and advocates for the law-offending founders the number of which is rising alarmingly.Medicine doctors have stolen prime plots and have vanished. Even the Prasad Eye Hospital spread over ten acres of land was individually availed by one Dr Tara Prasad Das at a miniscule price of 5 lakh rupees an acre.
There are thirteen others who have either transferred the plots clandestinely for a lucrative consideration or have done nothing until date and are still trying to negotiate with potential transferees.
Nothing could have happened without connivance of ‘know-all’ bureaucrats. Nothing can ever happen without their complicity. The ‘clean’ Chief Minister has not punished Kalpataru, Balbantray or Dasburma. The media is not carrying stories that can provoke people. Media reporters keep saying only what has happened. They do not ever talk of what should be happening as per law; who and why and how the offenders can be punished without delay.
Rule of law is being undermined so badly that the State seems to have degenerated into the status of a banana republic, where the most critical democratic component ‘rule of law’ is evidently non-existent.land scam stories do not end here. They will go on for quite some time until the executive takes stern measures by having some of the big lawmakers and administrative officials nabbed like street criminals are picked.
Only that simple act shall begin to sooth the burning hearts of the masses.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)