Big boys rule OK

Shoddy investigations into high-profile economic crimes are spawning a class of money bags that are fuelling the stock market, bending state policies and distorting politics

For more than a month now, a Delhi-based newspaper has been reporting on the raids conducted at the office of a distiller with businesses in Uttar Pradesh and other parts of the country. The newspaper detailed that the IT raids yielded a diary in which some accountant had carefully noted down the names of the recipients who had been paid off in the last few months. The pay-offs, the reports indicated, were made to politicians and bureaucrats to allow huge excise duty evasion. The newspaper hinted that Rs10 crore was paid to a UP-based politician every month. True to such articles, there were neither any names in it (for fear of being dragged to the courts on charges of defamation) nor any denials from revenue service officials. It seems obvious that the report was filed on the basis of the briefing by enforcement agency officials who found that they could not take the case to its logical conclusion. Till the time of writing, no action has been taken against the beneficiaries of the huge pay-offs.

This is not the first time that such diaries have surfaced detailing kickbacks to politicians and bureaucrats for all kinds of deals, but the wheels of justice have moved so slowly–and some time not at all–that the guilty have got away scot-free.

People who pay bribes have a tendency to keep a record. In 1991, a hawala dealer was arrested for spreading money around to businessmen and politicians. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that was trying to figure out how the Kashmiri militancy was being funded found to its horror that the same hawala banking channels were being used to fund terrorism in Kashmir as well as politicians and bureaucrats in India. A raid at a businessmen’s farmhouse who had been receiving hawala money revealed a diary, which carried initials of former presidents, prime ministers, finance ministers and scores of bureaucrats and MPs. The matter was hushed up after the diary was discovered. The person who hurtled on this case was thrown out of the organisation on charges of corruption. And the diary was consigned to the storehouse (maalkhana) of the CBI. In those days, Chandrasekhar was the prime minister and those who figured in the infamous diary were his ministers and bureaucrats. Instructions were clear from the very top: let the case rest in peace.

This author, who was working in a Mumbai-based weekly, Blitz, reported on the diary and how its contents were being covered up, but there was not a word from the agency. It was only after some public-spirited individuals, backed by the famous socialist leader, Madhu Limaye, chose to plead the Supreme Court that the CBI was forced to investigate the case. And did the CBI really do a good job?

The people that the CBI was probing were very powerful!  It included the entire phalanx of India’s non-communist leadership. Leaders like L K Advani, Yashwant Sinha, Devi Lal, the late Rajesh Pilot all figured in the rogues list. Many top bureaucrats, who later held top positions in the government, were also giving them company in the infamous diary. The hawala scandal was never really raised in Parliament as the leaders of most of the parties figured in the diary. Rs 64 crore, the amount that was allegedly disbursed amongst India’s ruling elite, according to the diary, was enough to buy the silence of Parliament.  Did the CBI investigate without fear or favour?