The Centre’s move to amend the Prevention of Corrupt Act which is termed draconian by public servants to ease their functioning will only make things more easy for Babus. Despite having tough laws India ranks in top echelons of corrupt nations and with Union Cabinet approving amendments in the sub-clause, one can imagine the working in public places. Government may be trying to remove the policy paralysis seen during UPA regime because of the presence of Section 13 (1) (D) (ii) of Prevention of Corruption Act. The process of diluting the clause was also taken by the UPA Govt during its tenure. The Law Commission has also given report which pointed out some poor drafting which would have dented the very purpose of reforms. The poor drafting has been the bane of legislations in India which gave the margin of interpreting such clauses differently at different times. With Govt going for privatisation of projects such rigid clauses would become a big hurdle in doing business but one cannot lower the guards on this pretext and allow bureaucracy to have an incentive to sidestep decision out of a sense of self-preservation. The change in the law to make working easy for Babus takes a more comprehensive view of corruption and attempts to combat it. This is an important step to bring India in sync with its international obligations. India was a signatory to United Nations Convention Against Corruption four years ago. But the expected changes and reforms have been very slow. Though Finance Minister Arun Jaitely has strongly advocated for diluting the clauses to make business easy one should not forget that this will no doubt check the spread of malady only if the investigations and prosecutions have to be speedy otherwise the story would remain the same. So there is a need to look into the issue on priority basis at different angle.
