A Step Towards Fighting Corruption

#GS-02 Governance, #GS-04 Ethics

Supreme Court on Corruption:

In Neeraj Dutta v. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi) Supreme Court has lowered the bar for the quantum of evidence required to convict persons charged with corruption.
It has declared that an accused can be convicted even if prosecution witnesses turn hostile, if the circumstantial evidence points unequivocally to the guilt of the accused.
The court through this judgement has set the standard of ‘preponderance of probability’ in case of corruption cases.

Preponderance of probability means that degree of certainty of belief in the mind of the Court by which it is convinced that the existence of a fact is more probable than its non-existence.
It is a much laxer burden of proof in conviction than the traditional beyond all reasonable doubts.

This judgement can help in ensuring integrity in public services, especially in the ‘superior’ services such as the Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service.
The severity of the law and its application and the strength of public opinion which carry forward the campaign for a clean public life are the two aspects to the fight against corruption.
Both of these are equally important if we are to rid the country of the corruption prevalent in the burgeoning bureaucracy.
However, law-makers and the public sometimes fail to understand that deterrence works only up to a point.
Higher penalties for criminal behaviour demand higher quantum of proof be required by the courts to be convinced of the guilt of those arraigned before them.
It is well known that some powerful people are accused of ‘buying’ prosecution witnesses which has now become moot.

It is fairly established that the misdeeds of public servants are partly attributable to political corruption.
In many States it has become so that no service even if it is a fundamental right can be obtained without greasing the palm of someone in the administrative or political hierarchy.
This includes jobs that are often sold at a price and many applicants are willing to pay without a complaint due to the acute unemployment.
The approval for construction of a building or for registration of a property in many cases is only possible with payment of a bribe.
These are but a limited number of the ways corruption has been a cancer to our society,