Transparency versus protection of civil servants from harassment: a growing dichotomy

With the recent allegation on the Coal Secretary of India, Mr HC Gupta for irregularities in coal block allegations, a demand has been made by the society, especially the civil servants to create a mechanism where a distinction between administrative oversights and criminal acts can be made. There has been a lot of hue and cry that if this practice continues, it would be impossible to establish a corruption free system of governance as it would be difficult to catch the main culprits. It is alleged that since he did not have money to give bribes, he had to go to jail. So, one of the biggest objectives of the corruption free drive is to provide for a gap between ensuring transparency and accountability and preventing harassment of civil servants.

What are the meanings of the terms transparency and accountability?

The concepts of “transparency” and “accountability” are twin concepts. These two are important pillars of democratic governance in modern societies. Sufficient amount of both are therefore essential to ensure that our resource wealth is used only for benefit of the whole population.Without these two, democracy is impossible as there will be no meaning left to elections and the notion of will of people, government can become arbitrary and self serving easily. Within systems of democratic governance, there are various aspects of the governmental accountability dimensions. First is democratic/political accountability, which is the main feature of democracy itself, where societies select their leaders via periodic elections. This dimension of accountability is ameasure of democratic quality, it extends beyond holding leaders accountable throughelections, Second is financial accountability, it deals withthe control and monitoring of the resources that boost the administrative machinery of government. The focus is to ensure that resources are used only for intended purposesaccording to proper and transparent procedures. The third dimension is performance accountability, which connects use of resources with the achievement of expected results. This dimension increases effectiveness and goal attainment.However the matter of concern is that who will guard the honest bureaucrats from people’s allegation. Even our institutions of integrity like CBI and CAG are not free completely from the influences of political interference and corruption. This generates a fear among the honest bureaucrats that may be the target of such conflicts.

Ways to bring about Transparency and Accountability

The different sources to bring out transparency regarding governmental actions and accountability:

(i)Code of Conduct – They have been defined comprehensively, but lack enforcement mechanism. Use of legal language and different interpretations make them of little use. Lack of revision is another problem.

(ii) Vigilance cells/commissions– The have been effective in unearthing many corruption cases, but due to lack of autonomy and limited powers they have not been able to make much difference. CBI for example was recently referred as a caged parrot by the Supreme Court.

(iii) RTI, Active media– they have been successful in unearthing many scams like 2G scam, Coal block allocation scam etc. But they are also misused sometimes. Also killing of RTI activists pose a challenge. This has limited their effectiveness.

(iv) Legislative measures – Though with time amendments have been done to curb various types of corrupt practices, but implementation is weak. This provides loopholes to the corrupt people.

Even after all this, the honest bureaucrats always a have a fear deep seated because they feel they are not free enough to take their own decisions and may face a lot of public allegations. This fear in turn affects their level of dedication towards their work. Centre has approved changes in the anti corruption and decided to make it compulsory for investigating agencies like CBI to take prior permission before inquiring the government officials. The bureaucrats complained of harassment after the former coal secretary H.C. Gupta’s emotional request to a court for the coal scam, the government took the power of disallowing any such future probes into its own hands.
This step can come back with a strong recommendation from parliamentary standing committee report on the proposed PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION (Amendment Bill). The bill states that police or probe agencies like CBI must obtain permission of Lokpal or state Lokayuktas before starting any corruption inquiry or probe against any serving or retired government official.
In a report after this the parliamentary committee, with support of all states proposed that the power to grant this sanction must be with the competent authorities (ministry/department) in the central or state government, as they will be the one who will have more information of their employee’s conduct.

Instead of these parliamentarian changes, we can safeguard them even by basic changes at the grassroots levels of the society.

Societal Changes to reduce Dichotomy

We can decrease the dichotomy to some extent by the following societal changes:

(i) Changing attitude of people:We need to change attitude of both the bribe giver and taker, through methods of social influence. Social proof, liking, reciprocity etc. can play a significant role in this.

(ii) Strict implementation of law and passing new laws like whistle blowers bill. We need to focus on inculcating positive values in children, who are our future generation. Role of family and school is very important in this. Also we need to protect them from negative impact of internet and social media.

(iv) Mid-career Training:– It will help in keeping them motivated and dedicated towards service.

(v) Comprehensive performance appraisal mechanism:Performance appraisal of public servants should be conducted by neutral observers, along with the present hierarchical mechanism.

(vi) Leading by example:Public servants must lead by example so that they can motivate their sub-ordinates.

CONCLUSION

The safeguard of our civil servants from harassment is very essential as it helps in smooth running of the administrative departments of the government and they can work with complete freedom and neutrality.