Chennai: Observing that almost all government offices are said to have become bedrock of corruption and some urgent preventive measures have to be taken in the interest of administration and people, Madras high court on Tuesday posed a query to the state government as to why it should not invoke Goondas Act to detain corrupt officials and public servants on the ground that their corrupt acts affect adversely the maintenance of public order.
Justice N. Kirubakaran posed this query while passing further interim orders on a petition from T. Boopathy, which sought a direction to the Sub-Registrar, Pammal to release deeds presented for registration, more than a year ago.
“Corruption has become rampant in all government departments, in spite of enactment of Prevention of Corruption Act. It is being said that corruption has become the order of the day and most of the official functions are done only on payment of illegal gratification. An officer, who has been appointed for doing official duties and is drawing salary from the public exchequer, cannot compel/expect the public to pay bribe for doing his duty. Day in and day out, people are thronging the government offices for getting their works done and in most of the cases, it is being said that people are compelled to pay bribe almost for each and every work. Need of the hour is an effective statute and efficient prosecution of offenders,” the judge added.
The judge said when the above was the sad state of affairs it was high time to take some serious measures to prevent corruption, as corruption would fit into all definitions of offences which have been mentioned under PCA as well as Goondas Act and National Security Act. Corruption by public servant was not only white collar crime, it was more heinous than other criminal offences, as corruption retrogrades our country's development.
“There is no use in speaking about weeding out corruption, unless stringent statues like “Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Cyber Law Offenders, Drug Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Forest Offenders, Sand Offenders, Sexual Offenders, Slum Grabbers Act and Video Pirates Act” and “National Security Act” are enacted to detain the corrupt elements/officials under preventive detention law as a preventive measure. Only when preventive detention is made, those who are indulging in corruption will be deterred and fear would be inculcated in their minds,” the judge added.
Pointing out that in this case, five registered documents executed before the Sub-registrar Office in August 2016 by the petitioner and others were handed over by the Special government pleader to the counsel for the petitioner, the judge said but for the case filed by the petitioner, the petitioner would not have been in a position to receive the documents in the near future, unless he paid the bribe money. Not only in this case, but in most of the cases, bribe was said to be the reason for the delay. Therefore, for deciding the larger issue, the petition was kept pending, the judge added.
