The sight of Chinnamma Sasikala, head bowed going into the Bangalore jail, was yet another huge leveller for those who pray for and believe in a level playing field for both saints and sinners.

And even in the turmoil Tamil Nadu still continues to be in, the state has seen its mightiest go to jail, serve sentences, get acquitted and convicted once again. In the saga of Sasikala’s route from Poes Garden to the Chief Minister’s office getting diverted to the Bangalore jail, lies the hidden story of how the state would have seen two of its last three Chief Ministers go to jail while in office, if Sasikala had been sworn in before the Supreme Court convicting her in the disproportionate assets case. And yet another humbling thought. If Jayalalithaa were alive, she too would have been in jail with Sasikala now.

The law does catch up. It has sent A Raja, another politician and former Union telecom minister, to Tihar jail. Two other members from DMK, his predecessor minister Dayanidhi Maran and the powerful Kanimozhi were also accused. Maran himself was accused in another scam where the main charge was that he, in his position as the telecom minister between 2004-2007, almost forced C Sivasankaran, then owner of Aircel Cellular Limited, to sell the company to Malaysia based Maxis Communications.

The axis of corruption and criminality always pivots around the powerful. But there is always a closure. But Goa, very unfortunately seems to be spinning on its own axis. Corruption is a way of life and the zero tolerance to corruption is directly proportional to the political usefulness of the corrupt to those in power. Goa has become a political laboratory of experiments on how corruption cases against opponents are dragged on.

While there is absolutely no empirical evidence that bringing powerful politicians to book is a deterrent to future corruption, there is no denying that a serious legal crackdown on the powerful sends message down the ranks. Over the years lip service has indeed been paid to acting against corruption but neither the Congress nor the BJP has shown any effective will to act against political corruption, in all the years that it has been in power.

The number of visible corruption cases, that are in the backburner are out in the open and are too obvious, not to put forth. When the BJP government came to power in 2012, and sections of the Goan media, including Herald, started a series of investigations against rampant corruption on the PWD department, unearthed during the Congress regime, PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar had promised that the system would be cleaned and even the powerful would not be spared.

Many divisions in the PWD are riddled with short term contracts issued without tendering, sanctioning works for roads which were tendered before and mainly at escalated costs. Minister Dhavalikar was simply all talk. In turn he spoke about “corruption in the GSIDC” which may have been justified, but it doesn’t account for absolute silence on the corruption ridden PWD, a department he has presided over but has not cleansed. Quite naturally some of the muck of the tainted PWD must stick with him, unless he gives tangible evidence of cleaning up corruption in the PWD.

The next department and its minister in the outgoing BJP government whose decisions and functioning must be probed is Power Minister Milind Naik. While there is no formal complaint of graft against him, can there be a justifiable reason for him sitting on files for the sanction of power loads of reputed companies for years? Can there be any justification of him not clearing the recruitment of trained engineers after the Chief Minister’s office had given them sanction, just because these were selected on merit and not through his own well oiled system of recruitment?

To counter this, can Milind Naik either get his party president Vinay Tendulkar, his Chief Minister Parsekar or Mr Manohar Parrikar himself to endorse his way of functioning. And yet, he is far from any serious probe.

Next, Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar has been pulled by no less an authority than the High Court which has held that his whole conduct, including that of others, in the Serula Comunidade land grab case is an “illegal expedient to usurp the land of the Comunidade without sanction of law.”

Has this minister faced any action which has deterred his continuance as minster, with the same perks, privileges and power even after this kind of a wrap from the High Court? If this is not a mockery of zero tolerance to illegal conduct by powerful ministers, then what is? Read this again. The Court has called the ministers action an “illegal expedient to usurp the land of the comunidade without the sanction of law”. Need one say more?

The court did not ask for an inquiry into the matter as investigations into the case are already pending before the investigating officer. As in this case, very often the judiciary depends on the elected executive to pursue these cases and bring the guilty to trial or to book. Clearly that doesn’t seem to be happening here.

Meanwhile the Louis Berger case, inspite of all the denials and motives attributed by the accused Digambar Kamat and Churchill Alemao, to the BJP government for going after them, is an extremely serious case of manipulation and bribery. The Crime Branch has filed a supplementary charge-sheet against former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 1.2 crore from Louis Berger India officials for securing contracts for a water and sewerage augmentation project funded by the Japan International Co-Operation Agency (JICA). He has been charged with criminal conspiracy and tampering with evidence of the Indian Penal Code and other sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. He is also being probed by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the scam.

We are simply quoting from the charge-sheet lest we lose track of this case. These are not Herald’s findings. "Kamat was instrumental in aiding then PWD minister Churchill Alemao in formation of different committees by approving the same for JICA project, contrary to JICA guidelines. Prime conspirator Digambar Kamat is also the criminal conspirator in concealing the main noting file of awarding JICA consultancy in Goa in connivance with other co-accused Alemao in order to hide the notings in the main file which would put light on the misdeeds of accused Wachasunder," the charge-sheet stated.

So what is the point? Simply that corruption cases should not fall off the radar. Churchill Alemao and Digambar Kamat have every right to come out of this case clean but can this happen by forgetting about the case, not tracking the investigation and preventing speedy trials are held? It is in the interest of the state, on behalf of its people, to do all it can to begin, continue and conclude trials of corruption cases. This will serve two purposes. Tainted politicians, who may ultimately be proven guilty, should not get an extended run of political freedom and power. At the same time if they are indeed innocent, it will be grossly unfair to keep the corruption taint on their heads lingering.

And for those against whom cases are being probed e.g. Pandurang Madkaikar -- for getting a land earmarked for public purpose, de-notified, and then buying the same land at a throwaway price, or Babu Kavalekar whose properties bought in Kerala are under scrutiny and so are dubious plot allotments of GIDC, the probes must be visible and concluded.

The Judiciary, remember, acts based on the speed of the executive and the legislature. While judicial delays happen, the unwillingness to take the promise of acting against corruption to its logical conclusion ensures that no one has to really pay for corruption. What has happened in Tamil Nadu is only a distant possibility in Goa, only because of this. And this something we must all fight against.