After having been let down by the Legislative and the Executive, taking advantage of its majority in Parliament and Legislative Assemblies, to bulldoze legislations and decisions, detrimental to people’s interests, the only hope for the citizens was the Judiciary, especially the High Courts and particularly the Supreme Court. Much to our anguish that hope too seems to have been lost.
India is perhaps one of the few countries where citizens have to keep an eye on illegalities, irregularities and wrongdoings of the government. Citizens are regularly constrained to go to courts, with PILs and waste their time, energies and finances often to protect the interests of the country or the State, when anywhere else, the government needs to keep a constant check on the citizens and their actions. It is no less painful that the courts have failed to pull up the governments for wasting courts’ precious time due to their acts of omission or commission. In fact, if culprits, mainly the bureaucrats had been penalised by the courts, much time and money would have been saved and above all there would be fear among the bureaucrats of reprisals. Incidents of people having to go to courts would have been less and courts would have ample time to decide other cases. Courts rarely impose costs on the government for compelling people to take recourse to courts to redress legitimate grievances.
The establishment has somehow, by exercising pressure or using blackmail, managed to have some controls which go contrary to people’s expectations. The readers are by now conversant enough with what has been happening around us and I need not dwell on them. Recently, there was a threat of contempt on social media, but it is not this fear which deters me, for it is too small a price one has to pay to salvage any damage. Truth must prevail and must be voiced, whatever the consequences.
Just like another Supreme Court Judge had said in a judgment that even God cannot save this country, more recently Justice P K Misra, our Lokayukta asserted in a report to the Governor that God alone can save Goa if the illegal renewal of mining leases in January 2015 “were not abuse of position”. The Lokayukta had recommended the filing of FIR for alleged “corruption and criminal conspiracy” against the then CM Laxmikant Parsekar, Mines Secretary, P K Sain and Mines Director Prasanna Acharya. Referring to the rejection of his recommendation by the government, he minces no words in demolishing what he calls “half baked ideas, incomplete and cursory reading of Lokayukta Act by the Advocate General”. He also lambasts the government for shouting from the rooftops about eradicating corruption while paying lip service to actual eradication.
Apart from the Lokayukta’s stringent remarks, it is strange that in a so-called democracy, the Lokayukta’s report should be only recommendatory and that sanctions need to be taken from the government for prosecuting ministers involved in corruption.
Justice Misra is retiring soon, but Goans need to salute him and will always remember him for being upright, intrepid and outspoken. Perhaps, we may not get another Lokayukta soon and even if we do, we know what we can expect from this government.
