DailyPost 2388
OVERSIGHT, VERIFICATION & VALIDATION OF POLITICAL PERSONAS
Are oversight and validation a necessity in public life? The more we talk of cleansing, the messier it turns out to be. The practitioners of the cat and mouse game of probity in public have always been won by vested interests and there seems to literally no chance of it taking a diametrically opposite direction. During the days of TN Seshan as the Chief Election Commissioner, a war was unleashed to bring probity in public life; in the election process, in the use of money and muscle power and efforts to woo/win voters in different ways.
Physically things started to be monitored on the ground on a day-to-day basis. The whole administrative mechanism is under ECI’s control during elections is common knowledge. So, to say, this battle against the politicians was thus launched. More than two decades later, are we better off? Or there are more compliances and no real oversight, verification or validation. Without commenting on the nature and timings of elections conducted, we would restrict to the documentation. It starts with the Affidavit, which gives all the details of the candidate’s assets & liabilities, criminal cases, educational qualifications et al.
Affidavit is the most misused legal document in the Indian legal system. The lacunae in it seems to have become the bane for the offenders, by way of facts it is supposedly a legal narrative. Judicial officers many a times struggle with it. It is meant to confuse, rather than vouch for something. Can candidate’s affidavit before the ECI taken as its face value or should it be substantiated with necessary documents to prove what is stated is beyond doubt. Who verifies these documents? How is it proven that whatever details are provided are true?
What is the oversight? Don’t we need a mechanism to verify the claims made and details laid out as facts. The history so far shows that unless there is a contradiction in different affidavits at different points in time submitted by a professional politician, everything is taken as gospel truth. What an unprofessional way of dealing with the financial and other backgrounds of people, who would make every law in the country and would be the leading lights of the political executive. Has any enquiry or criminal investigation ever started on this? If correctly studied, it can provide a mine of actionable intelligence. Criminal cases stated all needs to be cross checked, including of the stage of the case, inordinate delay et al. No one with a criminal case gets a govt. job. It is the job of the Public Service Commissions and such bodies to verify the documents; educational, caste, income etc, starting with the candidate bringing their original records to the concerned offices for scrutiny, to other necessary processes to verify and certify the documents to be true. In Digital India it can be done in a jiffy.
ANYTHING SUSPECT IN PUBLIC LIFE, BRINGS PUBLIC LIFE INTO FURTHER DISREPUTE. IT IS NO ONE’S INTEREST.
Sanjay Sahay