System needed to protect ‘bonafide’ bureaucrats: Bibek Debroy

NEW DELHI: Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister (EAC-PM) Bibek Debroy said India needs a system to adequately protect “bonafide” bureaucrats while ensuring that the scope of existing legislation is widened to cover all those involved in corruption.

“Unfortunately, even the amended Prevention of Corruption Act fails to adequately protect bonafide decision makers, who often take ex ante decisions without necessarily knowing the ex post consequences of those decision,” Debroy told ET.

Debroy has authored a chapter on corruption in soon to be released book Making of New India, a compilation of 50-odd essays co-edited by Debroy, Anirban Ganguly and Kishore Desai.


Under the amended PCA, investigating agencies will have to get prior sanction of the appropriate authority to probe officials, including those who have retired. Another key change is that “criminal misconduct” will now only cover misappropriation of property and possession of assets disproportionate to income.

Debroy says while the PCA defines ‘criminal misconduct’ by a public servant, there is no legislation that covers private sector corruption, within the private sector, and in government-to-citizen or government-to-business transactions.