On May 21, the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s (ACB) officers arrested two officials of the Bengaluru Deputy Commissioner’s office for demanding and receiving a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from a litigant. What initially appeared as a run-of-the-mill ‘trap case’ turned murky when Azam Pasha, the complainant, claimed that the bribe was meant for Deputy Commissioner (DC) Manjunath. Pasha went on to reveal that he had clearly informed the ACB about the Deputy Commissioner’s involvement in demanding a bribe for merely signing an order drafted in his favour.
While people may have wondered why the Deputy Commissioner was not arrested or questioned promptly despite the allegations against him, the case received little attention. However, the case was back in the limelight when one of the detained officials approached the Karnataka High Court for bail. While hearing the bail plea, Justice Sandesh expressed strong displeasure at the functioning of the ACB. In particular, he sought an explanation as to why the ACB had not arrested the DC and remarked that the ACB chief, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Seemant Kumar Singh, was a tainted officer.
On July 4, the bail plea mutated into a case in which the independence of the judiciary was threatened as Justice Sandesh had been threatened with a transfer. He revealed in open court that a sitting judge of the Karnataka HC informed him about the ADGP being a powerful officer and that someone from Delhi had enquired about him after he came down on the ACB and its chief.
On July 18, the Supreme Court restrained Justice Sandesh from monitoring the investigation and the ACB’s progress. It also described his observations about the ADGP as irrelevant, and pointed out that getting into the details of the probe during a bail hearing could be detrimental to the accused’s right to a fair trial.
This case, in its entirety, has exposed acute maladministration, lawlessness, and a threat to constitutional values. To begin with, the case has its roots in a maladministered revenue department. Data suggests that thousands of cases pertaining to land records, land revenue, transfer of title, grants, etc. are pending before revenue officials like Deputy Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners, and Tahsildars. In 2020, a full bench of the Karnataka HC deprecated the pendency of cases, the time being taken to decide on them, and the manner in which the revenue officials decided cases and applications. The court also highlighted the need for urgent reforms in the management of revenue cases.
The ACB’s reports indicate that the highest number of officials raided by them belong to the revenue department. In fact, Revenue Minister R Ashoka candidly admitted in the Assembly in 2020 that it was not easy to deal with corrupt officials in the Revenue Department. Recent raids by the Lokayukta revealed utter lawlessness in the offices of Sub-Registrars where touts ran the show and exploited citizens.
The conferring of wide discretionary powers on these officials, complicated land tenures, and the poor condition of land records have left citizens at the mercy of revenue officials. Therefore, it is unsurprising that Azam Pasha and many others have been asked to cough up a huge sum of money to secure their property rights.
The ACB has been criticised since its inception due to a lack of much-needed independence when compared to the erstwhile police wing of the Lokayukta. The ACB’s abysmal conviction rate and slow pace of investigation have weakened the deterring effect of anti-corruption laws. When Justice Sandesh began monitoring the investigation and the ACB’s performance, serious lapses were exposed. For instance, apart from the lackadaisical attitude in probing the involvement of the DC, the ACB was found to have closed cases by filing ‘B Reports’ even when the accused had been caught red-handed while accepting illegal gratification. Justice Sandesh also observed that several search warrants had not been executed and some of the officers extorted money from public servants by threatening to execute search warrants against them.
Though the Supreme Court is not wrong in opining that a judge hearing a bail plea should not traverse beyond the scope of the case and monitor the agency’s performance, good governance requires the ACB’s lapses to be probed. It is high time the ACB is brought under the vigil of an independent ombudsman like the Lokayukta. In its present form as an ordinary unit of the state police under the administrative control of the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, it will remain engulfed in controversies.
Perhaps the most disturbing dimension of this episode is the attempt to intimidate a judge through a threat of transfer. The framers of the Constitution recognised the President’s power to transfer High Court judges after consulting the Chief Justice of India (later interpreted as the Collegium) in order to enable “importing of better talent which is not available locally and to have Chief Justices unaffected by local politics and jealousies.” Subsequently, national integration emerged as another ground that warranted transfers.
Judges ought to be transferred only to secure better administration of justice and not for having passed inconvenient orders.
In the interest of judicial independence, the Chief Justice of India should order an inquiry into the allegations made by Justice Sandesh. If the judiciary does not fiercely guard against attempts to weaken a judge’s morale, unscrupulous interference with the functioning of the judiciary will begin to thrive.
In the past, the transfers of High Court judges like Justices Jayant Patel, Sanjib Banerjee, and Akil Kureshi attracted criticism. It has even been alleged that these judges paid a price for ruling against the executive. Therefore, constitutional propriety requires the Supreme Court to evolve a transparent mechanism of transferring judges so that the Collegium’s recommendations do not appear to be arbitrary.
This case has rung the warning bells of an impending threat to constitutional values and the pervasive nature of corruption in Karnataka. Ignoring Justice Sandesh’s remarks by branding it as an outburst may prove costly for citizens and institutions.
Rahul Machaiah is a lawyer from Karnataka. He holds an LLM in Law & Development from Azim Premji University.
Views expressed are the author’s own.