Unscrupulous politicians have their way when they get pliant subordinates or callous superiors or even at times a supine judiciary to do their bidding or endorse their blunders.
Indira Gandhi could impose Emergency because then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the proclamation without batting an eyelid. She could win judicial approval for her wrongdoing because a few judges, who came to be later permanently stigmatised for their weak-kneed conduct, upheld the murder of democracy and freedom that came with it, going to the extent of holding that Fundamental Rights could be suspended.
Similarly, as Minister for law and Justice, Ashwani Kumar could make changes in a status report on a highly sensitive inquiry the Central Bureau of Investigation is conducting in the coal block allocation scam because he could summon a bunch of spineless officers such as the Attorney General of India and the Director of CBI to participate in the disgraceful cover-up. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh continued to defend him despite the serious breach of propriety till he no longer could. So, there is a complicity that goes beyond one individual.
Once everyone was caught red-handed in the act of doctoring the status report — to the extent that the Supreme Court said in anguish and outrage that the “heart of the report” had been changed — the blame-game began in right earnest. Haren Raval, who was the CBI's lawyer and then Additional Solicitor General, blamed Attorney General GE Vahanvati for summoning him to the infamous meeting with Kumar. He added that he was forced to lie to the apex court in a bid to endorse the false position Vahanvati had taken before the judges on the matter. Vahanvati washed his hands of the matter by claiming that Kumar had called for the meeting which he merely attended. CBI Director Ranjit Sinha did many hilarious flip-flops in the ensuing confusion, but finally ended up accepting that his agency was indeed a “caged parrot” which was compelled to speak the language of its political masters. Kumar said only grammatical corrections were done. The Prime Minister, in whose interests presumably the entire episode had been crafted, remained mum as always.
When officers pass the buck, it is a sure sign not just of their insecurity but also their impotence. Raval could have politely told the Attorney General that he would not be complicit to a patently wrongful meeting; Vahanvati could have firmly told the law Minister that it is improper for the Minister to call for the status report and make subsequent changes; Sinha could have point-blank refused to share the draft status report on the probe with the Minister or any other Government servant on the ground that he was answerable only to the apex court and none else on that matter. Yet, none of them stood up for what was correct, because none had the stature to do so. Could Kumar have dared to push his devious plan if these officers had shown some resolutenessIJ If he had demanded to have his way in the face of their rejection, the officials could have told him that they would expose the deeds of the Ministers before the court to which they were answerable.
It is inconceivable that a Minister, least of all a political lightweight like Ashwani Kumar, would have had the temerity to summon the likes of Soli Sorabjee or Fali S Nariman or Harish Salve or Ashok Desai or K Parasaran, all of whom served as law officers in different regimes over the last few decades and scrupulously maintained the stature of their posts even as they came under pressure. None of these gentlemen would have allowed, let alone direct, their subordinates to participate in meetings that could compromise the trust which the court had placed in them as law officers. Salve told a television channel recently that, as law officer to a previous Government, he had ‘running battles’ with certain Ministries on how contentious issues were to be projected before the judiciary, but none of the Ministers ever tried to arm-twist him or direct him to do what was improper before a court of law.
But Vahanvati (and Raval before he quit after being pushed into a corner) and many others like them have in recent months been made of less stern and more malleable material. Government law officers of this kind consider themselves servants of the regime rather than the protecters of truth. For them, facts can be twisted so long as that serves to fortify their position in Government. One must remember the lengths to which Vahanvati went to justify the UPA regime’s untenable position on the 2G Spectrum licence scam. Worse, he had even gone to the extent of advising tainted Telecommunications Minister A Raja in his capacity as then Solicitor General. Raja had written to the Prime Minister on December 26, 2007: “I have already consulted… Solicitor General of India G E Vahanvati”, based on whose advice, he added, “I can go ahead with the allocation of 2G Spectrum space immediately.”
In fact, it was this yeoman service that Vahanvati did to the Government which must have weighed as one of the factors with the regime when it elevated him as the Attorney General. He did not let his political masters down then; he has not let them down now. But he has surely let down the profession which has given him not just his bread and butter but also recognition. Somewhere down the line, he appears to have forgotten the higher ideals.
The less said about the CBI Director the better. As a matter of rule, the probe agency has been headed by men who have proved to be extremely subservient to the ruling dispensation. It's difficult to remember when we last had a Director who stood up to his political masters. Part of the reason for this sorry situation could be that the CBI is tightly controlled by the Government, which can make or break the Director's career. A pliant Director can secure a place in the Raj Bhavan or as a member of some constitutional authority, post-retirement. These are among the juiciest incentives for toeing the Government's line. Unfortunately for him, despite his slavish attitude towards the regime, Sinha is unlikely to be rewarded in a similar fashion after the series of latest fiascos.
A Government gets the officers it deserves. A weak Prime Minister, with an even weaker set of Ministers, quite a few of whom like the Prime Minister have no political base and depend entirely on the largesse of the Nehru-Gandhi family for political survival, will never be comfortable with intrepid officers. For them, a Navin Chawla is any day a better option than a TN Seshan.