Absolute power

The extent of corruption in India can be gauged by media reports of the Supreme Court asking the Delhi police commissioner to probe an IIT professor's complaint that he had been threatened by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) chief for writing to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) accusing the ED head of enjoying the hospitality of a Kolkata hotel owned by a private company under investigation. Whatever happened to the Public Interest Disclosure (Protection of Informers’) Resolution of 2004 drafted at the instance of the Supreme Court to provide protection for those who campaign against corruption?

The case of the IIT engineer Satyendra Dubey being killed in Bihar after complaining to the PMO during the NDA regime about corruption in contracts cleared by the National Highways Authority is still fresh in mind. One wonders why the 2004 resolution was not effectively implemented in the case of the latest complaint by the IIT professor about the ED head. Or are we saying that the PMO is deluged with so many complaints about so many scams that it cannot even implement a resolution to protect whistleblowers who bring to the PMO's attention instances of corruption? The office of the most honest PM can surely do better!

The intensity of investigation into allegations of corruption seems inversely proportional to the proximity of those charged with the ruling party! There was no investigation into charges of corruption against Jaganmohan Reddy when his father was AP's CM. There was no investigation when Jaganmohan Reddy's father passed away and he stayed with the Congress. However, the minute Jaganmohan Reddy left the Congress and campaigned against the party, official agencies started investigating the charges of corruption against him with retrospective effect!