Strictures passed by Special Judge Anti-Corruption, Jammu in a case of alleged corruption filed against five SFC officers expose the inefficiency of the State Vigilance Organization. It is a verdict more on the social aberration of contemporary society than a singled out organization. For social scientist, the verdict provides an insight into the incredibly vast gap existing between good governance and governance provided. The judgment can also be considered a lament of a caretaker of the rights of the members of civil society functioning as Government servants. By touching poignantly on what trauma, depression and mortification the alleged offenders have gone through for two long decades, the judge has indirectly invoked the violation of human rights by the complainant in this case. Recalling the established axiom that justice delayed is justice denied, the judge has raked the crucial question of abject inefficiency and incompetence of the investigating agency for not coming to any final conclusion in establishing or not establishing a case of corruption against these functionaries of the SFC. The court has very rightly said that if the State Vigilance Organization has not been able to establish the corruption allegation for twenty long years, when it will do so.
The observation of the court is that the SVO is a huge organization with all infrastructure, manpower and environment of conducting independent investigation. How come that it is unable to deliver when it should? The verdict is a stern warning wrapped in soft and courtly language to the State Government that everything is not right with the State Vigilance Organization. Whether the State Government will take a notice of the judgment or not is for the authorities to decide. But the civil society attaches extraordinary importance to the judgment. To be candid, the judgment reduces to considerable extent the trust that civil society is supposed to repose in the SVO. People cannot be ridiculed for drawing various inferences from the verdict that cast aspersions on the organization. The court has expressed its anguish on very casual and irresponsible manner in which the State Vigilance Organization conducted investigation into the case. The Organization has utterly failed to find out the truth and establish blame. Why it has not been able to find the truth is what the court is surprised about. Is it inefficiency or advertent procrastination? Does not the SVO understand that delaying investigation for such a long time and then leaving the case undecided makes the organization an object of ridicule and suspicion? Why does the organization volunteer to take that blame on itself? The Vigilance Organization has a specific task to determine the extent of fraud, the amount of loss and the person involved in the fraud and it is always expected that once a case is registered against a Government official or anyone else the investigator conducts a very fair investigation so that the truth is unveiled. The history of the case reveals that it has been investigated by three investigating officers but without any result. The court asks how one can expect that the investigating officers after conducting a huge exercise could not form any opinion against any individual. The process of law was set in motion by a person in April 1995. After a decade the charge sheet was laid before the court and it has taken the court another decade to reach the final conclusion but at the end of the day what came to the fore is that the investigating officers have dealt with the investigation in a perfunctory and casual manner, which has been in fact the main cause of the debacle of the prosecution case, records the Special Judge Anticorruption.
All that we will say in this context is that the Government will have to accept the harsh truth that everything is not all right with State Vigilance Organization. It needs to be overhauled and re-organized. It has to deliver and that can happen only when honest, dedicated and patriotic officers and functionaries are running the organization. Crime and subterfuge have increased in contemporary society. We need an equally competent and effective mechanism to curb these evils. The Government needs to understand that and act. We appreciate that the court has harked the State authorities to the consequences of inefficiency and incompetence of crime investigating agency. The functioning of the investigating agency is flawed and almost flat. Government must respond to it.
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