THE EVIL OF TEMPTATIONS IN HUMAN DESTINY

A man’s journey of life is not all a bed of roses. It has its own bad patches. While things are normal a man meets with an irresistible temptation for money or power and one loses his balance of mind and discretion. The trap is ready for a downfall. Ramayana gives us a story. Sitadevi was tempted by the site of a golden deer and there arises a strong desire to posses it. The simple wisdom that such an animal does not exist in nature deserts her. The worst danger in life is at her door step and Sita and Rama suffer their destiny. We are seeing a spate of horrible destinies working in the lives of many men of prominence like raids, arrests, bail refusals, prosecutions. All these are the results of temptations in the minds of these men for making money of enormous proportion the easy way. A Chief Minister, members of his family, ministerial colleagues, senior most beaurocrats and the men of political prominence in the society all come together with many mega plans which they all thought were fool-proof. The State Government issues, dozens of G.Os, execute agreements of unprecedented dimensions and hands over thousands of acres of govt land to individuals. In a way it is not the action of few men but it is the govt of a State, thus become accused of many, many economic offences of a highly corrupt character. And then within a period of two years there is an outburst in the country and hundreds of men face most shameful and painful consequences publicly.

`        The mega size of this phenomenon of corruption actually indictes a total government but not a few individuals. The procedure followed is probably the most improper and inadequate. The offence is traceable to the highest political level. Entrusting such a phenomenon of crime to a police station is disproportionate treatment. The State Govt could have been replaced by President’s rule and all men of guilt summoned and confronted with the facts of offence and given a choice of an arrest or a confession. A preliminary enquiry of all the offences without a prosecutional standard would suffice for such confrontation with the guilty. Given a choice anyone could have been made to confess, surrender the sinful pelf, and voluntarily get out of their public positions. Faulty agreements, allotments and G.Os, could have been corrected or strucked off. After a preliminary investigation a suitable presidential interference would have remedied the national evil undoing the damage without so much pain and shame. The long and tortuous procedures involving the criminal courts without a certainty of final convictions could have been avoided. At this moment it is not possible to foresee any specific conclusions and results to the procedures that have started. It is wise to note that the police machinery cannot be entrusted with the eradication of the high level nation-wide corruption. The evil is at the level of political corruption, indulged in by the Govt itself. The appropriate power to deal with such a crime is presidential interference, suspension of a State Govt., establishing a special and suitable authority and then correcting the wrongs in public interest, undoing the damage to the public wealth, restoration of an order in public administration. All these cannot be substituted by criminal procedures leading to dozens of convictions which are not always a certainty. Such a civil and civilian procedure would have been smooth and certainly more successful and with much less time.

          The constitution and the State-Centre equations should be able to provide for such a remedy. This would ensure resumption of excess or wrong allotments of land without scrapping a mega project planned in public interest. The present chaos proves to the public investors Indian or Foreign, that a Govt. sanction is not after-all a finality. The credibility of a Govt action is always at stake.