DailyPost 2139
LAW, PROCUREMENT, AUDIT, INVESTIGATION – CAN ALL HANG IN MID-AIR?
Who are the practitioners? Have they legally mandated jobs cut out for them? Can all these be a topic of general discussion, even to the extent of gossip? Whatever catches the public imagination should be fed, is the functional punchline of Indian democracy? People will catch fancy for a variety things at different points in time. More often than not it yields rich political and electoral dividends. All issues needing specialized treatment, lots of time with confidentiality and professional acumen, need to ward off political influence and deliver in the copybook style of what the system has mandated it to deliver.
TV anchors have become the best of legal luminaries’ courtesy our well-known search engine. The case goes down the drain in a couple of years’ time, and the accused are out validated as innocent. The media would keep on spinning issues till the time some become a mania. Social media has added fuel to the fire, it is like having the nuclear button with you, and it can be orchestrated in a variety of ways in the digital world. Impact making with literally no risk. No holds barred, from any angle whatsoever. All combined it is a super Kangaroo Court, sitting in judgement over complex legal / criminal / procurement and investigation issues.
The passing of the bill into law, going by the number of acts passed, would be enough to keep all law makers busy for the whole year. It is their job. Law makers need legal and domain acumen, plus the capability to connect the need with the impact. Law is complex envisioning at its best and reading galore. We have the swift passage of bills, parties following the diktats, what damage it does later in some very critical areas is no one’s business. Ones who mandates need not know the law. Fast forward to investigation, we have scams, and scandals all around the place, hitting headlines and being there for months but what is the final output? Are there issues with effort, acumen, perseverance, logistics, use of tech, partiality at times or the sheer lack of vigour to take it through the legal process, the end result does not match the hue and cry of registration and initial investigation.
Procurement or the financial kitty which enables that, many times speaks of the power / prestige of the departments, organizations and people who head them. Procurements by now should have become as solid as an assembly line. But that has not happened. It is creaking from all points, any type of procurement and construction for that matter and now recruitments seems to have been added to that bandwagon. Audit is a very precise process of fixing the deliverables and accountability. It can do and undo. More so if it messed up with media blitzkrieg. It cannot be deciphered, no one wants to. It can end up in being notional as well. Hard hitting figures and hard coded processes can be the only way out. Otherwise, the repercussions would be unconnected to the facts, exponential favour as has been proven in the past.
IF EVERYTHING IS DECIDED IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, WE CAN ONLY BECOME A FISH MARKET.
Sanjay Sahay