Gurugram: His critics call it a gimmick while the Haryana government’s media secretary vouch for the steps taken to check corruption in governance and administration. A more than three-fold jump in graft cases has seemingly prompted CM Manohar Lal Khattar to suggest that boards be put up outside government offices and in public places to name and shame corrupt officials.
In a video clip shared by him in which he addresses senior police and administrative brass officers, including the chief secretary and the DGP, at Panchkula on International Anti-Corruption Day (9 Dec), Khattar further proposes such departments can even name corrupt officials after their retirement so that they serve as a warning to the serving staff.
विभाग के सबसे अधिक भ्रष्ट कर्मचारी का नाम बोर्ड पर लिखकर कार्यालयों और पब्लिक प्लेस पर लगा दिया जाए,
ताकि दूसरों के मन में भी ये बात फिट हो जाए कि भ्रष्टाचार किया तो उनका नाम भी उसी बोर्ड पर लगा दिया जाएगा।#InternationalAntiCorruptionDay pic.twitter.com/qV0AYtTxHb
— Manohar Lal (@mlkhattar) December 9, 2023
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report for 2022, Haryana reported 246 cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA), and related sections of the IPC last year as against 57 cases in 2020 and 79 cases in 2021.
Of the 39 graft cases in which trials were completed, the accused were acquitted in 24 cases, 2 others were discharged and only 13 cases resulted in conviction — a conviction rate of 33.3 percent. As many as 393 cases were pending in the courts by the end of 2022 with a pendency rate of 90.8 percent.
Praveen Attrey, media secretary to the Haryana government, however, said that ever since Khattar took over the reins in 2014, he initiated steps to end corruption from the governance and the administration.
Attrey told ThePrint that minimising human interface in the administration by the introduction of technology was the first step towards ending corruption. “Today, hundreds of government-related works of people, including the transfer of employees are done online. People just have to apply on portals for that.”
The Khattar government has a zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and during the past two years in particular, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested several senior officers, including some from the IAS, on corruption charges, he added.
Attrey contended that the higher number of cases registered under the PCA and related IPC offences suggests that the ACB has cracked down on the corrupt officials in a bigger way.
Khattar’s predecessor and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda had a suggestion for the chief minister. “First of all, Khattar should end corruption in his government. Corruption is so rampant in the government that no work is possible without paying money. The talks of writing names of the corrupt officials are just empty words and lack sincerity,” Hooda told The Print Tuesday.
As Khattar’s ministerial colleagues were drowned deep in corruption, he alleged, the CM’s sermons would sound hollow to the officials.
P.P. Kapoor, an RTI activist who has been unearthing corruption in the government machinery for the past several years, wondered what stopped Khattar from implementing his own proposals.
“Had someone else said what Khattar said it would have been understandable. But Khattar is the CM of Haryana. If he means to end corruption by shaming the corrupt officials, all he has to do is issue a written order. However, rather than issuing any such order, he has chosen to talk about this in his speech. This is nothing more than an eyewash,” Kapoor told The Print Tuesday.
Similarly, political analyst Pawan Kumar Bansal felt that the CM’s suggestion was vague and lacked sincerity. “The most important issue is how do you identify the most corrupt official. In the late 90s, the IAS Officers’ Association of Uttar Pradesh started a process to identify the most corrupt officer among them. However, the exercise resulted in the division of the association,” he said.
Like the RTI activist, Bansal asserted that he should have gone ahead by implementing orders rather than sermonising officials.
Sarva Karamchari Sangh president Dharambir Phogat, who represents the interests of Group C and D government employees, said that the organisation would support Khattar if he was serious about what he said on International Anti-Corruption Day.
“… what we are observing for the past nine years (is) there are only talks of fighting corruption, while its scourge has been increasing day by day. Today, people sitting on high posts are more into corruption,” Phogat alleged.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: Hooda alleges ‘betiyan unsafe’ in Khattar’s Haryana. Here’s what NCRB data says