Hold bribe giver accountable to stamp out corruption:Lord Swraj Paul

NEW DELHI: Making a strong pitch for clean corporate governance and probity in politics, UK-based NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul has said the "cancer" of corruption cannot be stamped out of India unless givers of bribe are held responsible equally as the takers.

He lauded the passage of the Companies Bill 2012 by Parliament recently, the biggest change in corporate law since 1952 which is expected to enhance transparency and attract international investments to India, but said these legislative changes will work only if business leaders "embrace not only the letter of law but also its spirit."

Corruption in certain countries has destroyed the fabric of society for ordinary people and lowered the prestige of those nations internationally, the Chairman of the two-billion pound Caparo group said here while delivering the inaugural Dr Stya Paul lecture, instituted in the memory of his brother and leading educationist.

Referring to scams like 2G and coal block allocations, he said, "Corruption is cancer.... There can be no tolerance of corruption at any level or any scale. It is divisive and corrosive....

"As we have all read, India's recent rapid economic development has been plagued by increasing corruption in both the private and the public sector and between the two. Perhaps what gets less comment is that all parties to an act of corruption are responsible."

Maintaining that corruption cannot function in isolation, he said that in a society where corruption is endemic and one wants to get something done, then it is all too tempting to offer a bribe.