Anil Goswami’s exit shows the Centre’s resolve
Mr Anil Goswami's departure as the Union Home Secretary has demonstrated the shockingly deep levels that the Saradha chit fund scam has permeated. Based out of West Bengal, the scandal had been until now singing influential people, including politicians, from that state. Mr Goswami's unceremonious exit shows that the scam had reached the corridors of Delhi.
This is in a way not entirely surprising, because no one in his right mind had believed that the massive fraud could have been engineered without help from various quarters outside the State. Mr Goswami had no defence left when the Government was told he had phoned the Central Bureau of Investigation on behalf of the accused and one-time influential Congress Member of Parliament Matang Sinh, to avoid or at least delay the latter's imminent arrest.
In fact, the CBI Director is reported to have conveyed to the Home Minister that the agency had received a phone call from Mr Goswami in connection with Mr Sinh's impending arrest. In a meeting with the Union Minister for Home Affairs Rajnath Singh, the discredited Home Secretary admitted to the phone call, though he refused to acknowledge that he had been trying to influence the investigation.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking a strong position on the development, Mr Goswami had no option but to put in his papers by way of voluntary retirement a few months ahead of the scheduled end to his tenure. Had he not done so, he would have surely been sacked. Of course, the voluntary retirement has not fetched him a dignified exit; he stands tainted and could even be the target of the ongoing probe into the scam the CBI is conducting.
It is quite possible that, through Mr Goswami, the CBI may be able to dig out more information on the case. Both Mr Sinh and Mr Goswami can be valuable material for the investigating agency to proceed with. We have to wait and see how the matter unfolds. The latter's inglorious departure and the former's arrest must be giving sleepless nights to many people who are perhaps under the CBI's scanner but not publicly named as yet.
The developments also make it difficult for those already arrested, since the agency has been inching closer to connecting all the dots and nailing the culprits. Mr Goswami's exit also means that, while the Modi Government has empowered the bureaucracy to perform and deliver, it does not hesitate to crack the whip hard on erring babus.
Political patronage is no longer going be an effective shield for a civil servant who runs foul of the law. Many observers have erroneously clubbed Mr Goswami's departure along with the curtailment of service of Ms Sujatha Singh as Foreign Secretary and the easing out of Mr Avinash Chander as chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation.
Neither Ms Singh nor Mr Chander faced the kind of accusation Mr Goswami does; in fact there was no allegation by law against either of the two. While Ms Singh's curtailment of service was part of a recalibration of the Government's foreign policy, Mr Chander (serving on a contract basis) was asked to leave because the Government wanted a new person at the helm. But the three cases do indicate the Government's resolve to act firmly — a refreshing change from the UPA regime's laxity.