State and stasis

The government creates a vacuum for others to enter

It is a sign of the times that the government’s auditor should sound off on the credibility of the government being “at its lowest ebb”. Imagine a company auditor sounding off about the credibility of the firm’s management, when all that he is required to do is to certify that the accounts are in order, and the extent of over-reach becomes clear. The Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) comments frequently find an echo in judicial pronouncements, some of them in the form of off-the-cuff remarks from the bench and some in the form of judgments that seek to take on executive functions. The new Press Council chairman is yet another example of someone who sounds off on all manner of issues, and talks of exercising power that the law does not give him (like cancelling newspaper registrations, and imposing fines on publications). The CAG in particular has been in the spotlight because he now aspires to audit government policy—which is a sovereign function of the government of the day. Does the CAG really think that he should sit in judgment on the wisdom of Cabinet decisions? Under what powers? Observers have commented that the origin of the spreading tendency to over-reach, and to encroach on territory that lies beyond a demarcated line, lies with the National Advisory Council, chaired by Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the Congress as well as of the ruling alliance. Members of the NAC have sounded off on all manner of issues, ticking off ministers and other public functionaries as though the NAC constitutes a supra-government, sometimes without observing even the civility of public discourse. It might of course be argued that a weak-kneed government has asked for trouble by creating a governance vacuum; and since nature will not allow a vacuum to exist, sundry others have stepped into the breach.

The prime minister, on his part, thinks that the problem lies with the law on the Right to Information (RTI) Act, which he suggests may need a review in view of the difficulties it has created for bureaucrats and ministers in taking decisions. Dr Singh may be right when he says the bulk of RTI applications are frivolous and don’t serve any public interest. But if he asserts that it is RTI that has caused policy paralysis among bureaucrats who are afraid of making notings on the files, then he has to produce some evidence in support of his contention. If the Prime Minister has been stung by the note that went from the finance ministry to the PM’s office, on the 2G telecom scam, it is a poor example to cite. This was not a file noting by any single official, it was a considered note prepared with considerable help from the Cabinet secretariat and the PM’s office, and sent from the finance ministry with the minister’s consent. Indeed, this is a good example of how the RTI law has done a power of good by exposing what goes on in the government.