A Colossal Failure corruption case of Ministers:- SOME FOUR YEARS AGO, when the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) started filing graft cases against former ministers and political heavyweights, one after another, the public mood was euphoric as the CIAA move had resurrected hopes that the big fish in the game of corruption who had so far managed not to lose either face or name despite being responsible for huge corruption scams would be made to pay for their crimes. The people thought the wheels of change had been finally set in motion, for the good. And the notions that corruption never pays and if it does it does with jail time, and that nobody can escape the long arm of the law looked very real. But now, the people have been forced to think otherwise. The Special Court, explicitly formed to decide corruption cases, has started clearing them, one after another. Recently, it freed former ministers and Nepali Congress leaders Khum Bahadur Khadka and Govinda Raj Joshi- who the CIAA, the constitutional anti-corruption watchdog, had accused of amassing huge property through illegal means while in power. Convinced that both Khadka and Joshi were indeed guilty of white-collar crime, the CIAA had demanded over Rs 23.6 million and Rs 39.3 million in fines against Khadka and Joshi, respectively, and a 13-year prison term for each of them. The CIAA's charge sheet against Khadka says he built houses, bought land in the capital valley and outside, and vehicles while he was a minister (he became minister thrice in the post 1990 period) and that every time he became a minister his and his close relative's bank accounts swelled up. The anti-corruption body claims all this was simply not possible with his known sources of income. But in the "special" courtroom in the capital, announcing its verdict on Khadka's case, the Special Court freed him "due to lack of evidence." The verdict on Joshi's case is even more interesting. The court freed him nearly three years after the case was filed against him on the grounds that it was not filed within the "one-year deadline." What is noteworthy here is the one-year deadline was part of the previous CIAA Act of 1991, which required a corruption case to be registered against any public position holder within one year of the alleged misuse of a public post. The old Act has already been replaced by a new one- the CIAA Act of 2002 which has no mention of any such deadline whatsoever. It's obvious that the lawmakers removed the one-year deadline provision from the new law as a fail-safe measure against corruption cases, which are often complicated and require lengthy investigations. The fact that the court freed Joshi on such a false technicality mirrors a colossal failure on our justice system. It will only help the spectre of corruption to grow. It has established a precedent: Commit corruption, amass wealth, somehow manage to let a year pass and then whatever you earned through whatever means will become legal! And this precedent has opened the backdoor for other corruption-accused high-profile people including former minister Rabindra Nath Sharma, former IGPs Pradip Shumshere Rana, Moti Lal Bohara and Achyut Krishna Kharel, to make their merry way through as the one-year deadline was not met in their cases too. The million-dollar question is why didn't the Special Court scrap the case against Joshi at the very beginning if it was registered after the one-year deadline? Why did it take nearly three years to make such a simple decision? This only raises the eyebrow of suspicion. Why are a selected few always beyond the reach of "the long arm of the law?" When will we have a sound justice system supported by strong law enforcement agencies that are genuinely blind to any political leanings and family connections? Corruption is deeply rooted in our society. It has hampered our pace of development. It has undermined democracy and the rule of law. The acquittal of Khadka and Joshi is a gloomy reflection of the state of the rule of law in Nepal as it is also an indicator of where we stand as a society and state. Corruption has been so widespread and impunity so rampant in our society that everybody is tempted, in fact encouraged, to commit corruption. There is no doubt that it is the culture of impunity that has over the years been responsible for the rampant abuse of public offices. When those holding public positions don't have to fear punishment, their personal morality stands as the only deterrent against vices. And we all know personal morality can take a beating in the face of material temptations. This is even truer for those in positions of power as power does tend to corrupt. We expected the post 1990 democratic period to be different than the Rana Regime, the Panchayat, and the direct rule of king Gyanendra- some of the darkest periods of our recent history that functioned on the whims of individuals. But we all know our expectations were not met. And with much hope, we expected, especially after this April, that reason and rationale, not connections and whims, would guide the court in its decisions. Many big corruption cases of the past including the Carpet Scam, Snake Skin Scandal etc of the Pachanyat period and the Red Passport, Dhamija, Lauda and Pajero scams of the brief post-1990 democratic period- to name a few- saw their actors easily escape without a scratch. And now two of the most talked-about corruption cases have met the same fate, in the newly born Loktantra, eroding public faith in our institutional mechanism to control corruption and establish good governance and the rule of law. The cases of Khadka and Joshi provided the Special Court an opportunity that could go far in breaking the culture of impunity, to instil the lost sense of trust in the people's mind about our judicial system and raise the bar for good governance. It was an opportunity to substantially change people's perceptions of our justice system and establish a new value system through decisive actions against the guilty. But the court failed badly, giving enough room for suspicions that the failure was deliberate. Now all eyes are set on another huge corruption case against another political heavyweight- Chiranjeevi Wagle, who has already been convicted of corruption by the Special Court with two and half years of imprisonment and Rs. 27.2 million in fines slapped against him. His case is pending at the Supreme Court for a final verdict, which will arguably decide whether our judicial system is full of holes as it appears or water tight. After all, it is public knowledge that Khadka, Joshi and Wagle, who without any doubt have played important roles in Nepal's struggle for democracy, could not control the temptation to sink their teeth in the rich money pie while in power. It is a reality and cannot be overlooked. source: http://www.kantipuronline.com/columns.php?&nid=92051 Khum Bahadur Khadka (corrupted Congress minister) .