Posted on August 26, 2015 from Delhi, National ι Report #25847
While the Narendra Modi government came to power with a roaring mandate that was billed as one against rampant corruption and scams in India under the previous UPA government, not much seems to have changed since the change of guard, says a news report published in India Today.
A series of RTI applications revealed while allegations of 'foreign bribery' have flown thick now and then, from Bofors scam to the latest AgustaWestland deal, the government either does not have a database of such cases or wants to keep the matter away from public glare.
As per the Anti-Bribery Convention of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), foreign bribery is defined as "to offer, promise or give any undue pecuniary or other advantage, whether directly or through intermediaries, to a foreign public official, for that official or for a third party, in order that the official acts or refrain from acting in relation to the performance of official duties, in order to obtain or retain business or other improper advantage in the conduct of international business".
The obfuscation of information started when the India arm of international anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International sought information on government investigations on allegations of bribery of public officials, foreign as well as Indian, between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2014. "All our efforts to find out the number of such investigations across India met with a dismal response. From the Ministry of Home Affairs to the CBI, no one seems to either have the knowledge of such cases or they firewalled the information for reasons best known to them," executive director of TI-India Ashutosh Kumar Mishra told Mail Today.
"We are planning to file a PIL soon. It is strange that such sensitive information can go missing in the superstructure of ministries and departments when the PM has time and again expressed his government's commitment to the cause of curbing corruption and bribery," Mishra added.
An OECD 2014 report also mentioned India as one of those countries whose public officials received bribes in the context of international business transactions.
As the tale of RTIs goes, TI filed an RTI with the MHA and in response the organisation was told that the MHA did not have any information on such cases as "the data is scattered among state governments/UT administrations and several public authorities."
Another RTI filed with the Ministry of Personnel which has under its aegis the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the nodal agency for such cases as per the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) convention, further complicated the matter. "While the DoPT must have information sought by us, it referred the query to the Central Vigilance Commission, Department of Revenue, Department of Expenditure, yet again to the Home Ministry and also to the CBI," said Mishra.
While the aforesaid Union ministries and departments returned 'NIL' as answer to the query, passing the buck in every instance, the CBI then referred the query to all its branches across India. The answers were expected to be sent directly to the policy division of the agency.
"While most CBI branches chose to hide behind the veil of the exemption from the RTI Act-2005 provided to the agency since 2011 vide a government notification and denied divulging the information, several other CBI branches said they did not have any information in this regard. We have RTI responses of all of them," Mishra said.
Published Originally in India Today
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