New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS) Some constitutional provisions that grant protection to government officials come in the way of anti-corruption efforts and they should be repealed, Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said here Sunday as he mooted large-scale changes in anti-corruption laws.
“There is no gainsaying that the provisions of Article 311 have come in the way of bringing the corrupt civil servants to book. Article 311 would require a revisit. I am pursuing the matter with the prime minister and the government,” Moily told a national seminar on ‘Fighting Crime related to Corruption’.

“In fact, the Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption wryly remarked how Article 311 of the constitution as interpreted by our courts has made it very difficult to deal effectively with corrupt civil servants,” he pointed out.

“Even after Article 311 was amended, the panoply of safeguards and procedures still available is interpreted in such a manner as to make the proceedings protracted, and therefore, effete in the ultimate analysis,” Moily told the seminar, organised jointly by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Lok Nayak Jayprakash Narain National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Science.

“Article 311 may be repealed along with Article 310 and legislation should be passed under Article 309 to provide for the terms and conditions of service of public servants, including necessary protection against arbitrary action,” proposed Moily.

Responding to Supreme Court Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan’s proposal, made Saturday during this seminar, to enact a law to seize property of the corrupt officials, Moily said there should be no need of prior approval to prosecute corrupt officials.

Calling for changes in the anti-corruption law, Moily said the corruption “is undermining social cohesion and wider participation of citizens in economic and political processes”.

In his valedictory address to the two-day seminar, he also exhorted the CBI to increase its conviction rate in corruption cases.

The wide range of changes in the Prevention of Corruption Act that the minister mooted included a provision for “statutory protection for whistleblowers and victim protection”.

Endorsing the chief justice’s call for seizure of corrupt officials’ ill-gotten properties, Moily said: “The Corrupt Public servants (Forfeiture of Property) Bill as suggested by the Law Commission should be enacted without further delay.”

He also said: “There should be no need for prior sanction to prosecute a public servant who has been trapped red-handed or found in possession of assets disproportionate to known sources of income.”

The other changes that Moily suggested included immediate implementation of the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 - a law enacted by the erstwhile Rajiv Gandhi government but yet to be implemented.

Moily also sought widening the anti-corruption law to include acts like “violation of the oath of office, gross perversion and misuse of the constitutional provisions, abuse of authority by unduly favouring or harming someone, obstruction of justice, squandering public money and collusive bribery”.

He said, “There is an emerging global consensus that fighting corruption and building ‘good governance’ are essential for the socio-economic development of any nation”.

“The prevalence of corruption undermines social cohesion, wider participation of citizens in economic and political processes, distorts allocation of resources and delivery of public services particularly damaging the interest of the poor and marginalised sections of society,” Moily added.