The flailing badge of courage

Blind obedience is the name of the game in the governance of India

Government lockers everywhere seem to be bursting with so many dark secrets that some of them have been spilling over to the public domain these days. Disobedient public servants, eager journalists and hackers in the shadows have been splashing in the leaks, despite toxic consequences. Last week, Supreme Court judges spent long hours grappling with the gush of 5,800 pages of the Niira Radia conversations, sealed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 52 bundles, which starkly revealed how the country is being governed. The judges want a finger in the dyke, like that of the Dutch boy, before the state sinks further below sea level.

The same week, a public interest petition claiming to be on behalf of an officer who took on the mining mafia in Uttar Pradesh was rejected by the court, stating that she was capable of looking after herself. However, not everyone is made of such sterner stuff. The more common instinct among the bureaucrats is self-preservation. At best they can whisper hints to a friendly neighbourhood journalist and immediately melt into the shadows. A leak is a kind of silent shout. It is not easy to stay within the pecking order and fight battles of dissent from within.

Sometimes a lone victim of questionable decisions of the authorities carries the grievance up to the Supreme Court and spills the beans. Last year, top officers of the Union Territory of Chandigarh were censured for taking over the land of farmers for a private venture (Surinder Singh vs Union of India). The court stated that the land acquisition officer merely followed orders from above. "If he had shown the courage of acting independently and made recommendation against the acquisition of land, he would have surely been shifted from that post and his career would have been jeopardised," the court remarked accepting the ground realities. "In the system of governance which we have today, junior officers in the administration cannot even think of, what to say of, acting against the wishes/dictates of their superiors. One who violates this unwritten code of conduct does so at his own peril and is described as a foolhardy." The court narrated how at each tier of the administration, the word from above was followed mindlessly. "They could not muster courage of expressing an independent opinion."

The court ordered reopening of a tax assessment since it suspected that the officer concerned had acted under pressure from her superior (CIT vs Greenwood Corporation). She accepted the returns filed by the Himachal Pradesh company, and wrote extensively, in an attached note, that she did so according to instructions from the commissioner. She repeatedly called the commissioner "worthy", to make her point. When the matter was probed, there was a long list of improprieties unworthy of a commissioner. The court remarked: "When a statute provides for different hierarchies providing for forums in relation to passing of an order as also appellate or original order; by no stretch of imagination a higher authority can interfere with the independence which is the basic feature of any statutory scheme involving the adjudicatory process."

In another case, Tarlochan Singh vs State of Punjab, the elected president of a municipal council was removed from his post by the principal secretary. Quashing the order, the court said: "In the system of Indian democratic governance as contemplated by the Constitution, senior officers occupying key positions such as secretaries are not supposed to mortgage their own discretion, volition and decision-making authority and be prepared to give way or being pushed back or pressed ahead at the behest of politicians for carrying out commands having no sanctity in law. The Conduct Rules of Central Government Services command the civil servants to maintain at all times absolute integrity and devotion to duty and do nothing which is unbecoming of a government servant. No government servant shall, in the performance of his official duties, or in the exercise of power conferred on him, act otherwise than in his best judgment except when he is acting under the direction of his official superior."

In yet another decision, the court emphasised that a statutory authority vested with jurisdiction must exercise it according to its own discretion (Anirudhsinhji vs UOI): "Discretion exercised under the direction or instruction of some higher authority is failure to exercise discretion altogether." The order of the chief minister to grant a stage-carriage permit to a crony was quashed in Prachan Chand vs Himachal Pradesh. The transport commissioner's powers could not be usurped by the chief minister, the court emphasised. In a case complaining about interference in the power of the cane commissioner, Purtabpur Company vs Cane Commissioner of Bihar, the court said: "While exercising that power he cannot abdicate his responsibility in favour of anyone - not even in favour of the state government or the chief minister."

These are only exceptional instances of the evil of blind obedience which came to light. Very few can follow the mantra of activist Harsh Mander, who was transferred 22 times in 17 years: "You are told that obedience is your highest duty. But I believe that for a public servant, disobedience, in the sense of acting according to one's conscience, is equally important."