The prime ministers of India and Pakistan have different stars to guide them. The Supreme Court of one country saves the prime minister while the other asks his counterpart to appear before it for contempt. The cases have no similarity. Yet the message they convey is the same: the judiciary is independent and recognises no pulls from any quarters.
The lapse noted against PM Singh is that his office (PMO) did not give sanction for 16 months to the prosecution of telecom minister A Raja, who has been guilty of granting licenses to mobile companies, (known as the 2G spectrum scandal) arbitrarily and illegally.
The Supreme Court exonerates PM Singh on the grounds that the nature of the PM’s office is such that he cannot look into the details of every case. The PM’s advisors were ‘duty bound to apprise him of the seriousness of the allegations’ against the minister to enable the PM to take appropriate steps.
The court is justified in finding faults with PM’s advisors and officers for having failed him. But it is difficult to believe that the PMO did not inform Manmohan Singh about the sanction and that too when it had been pending for 16 months. In fact, the reply of PMO on persistent reminders was that the matter had been referred to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) when the sanction was not dependent on its inquiry. Apparently, some other forces influenced the delay.
That the matter is an embarrassment for the PM goes without saying because his cabinet colleague was involved. Yet the explanation does not wash. True, the PM, heading a coalition government, had to be careful about the sensitivity of his ally, the DMK, which naturally backed Raja, its senior member. The public is not, however, concerned with the compulsions of alliance. It seems that the 16 DMK members in the Lok Sabha are so crucial to the government’s tenure that it can go to any extent to placate them.
The correspondence between Raja and the PM makes it clear that the PMO knew how Raja was going about favouring certain parties, flouting all rules and norms. Still, the PMO did not do anything. Either it was instructed not to take any action or the office itself was mixed up. Whatever the truth, the cursory attitude by PMO or at best the political considerations before it, does not lessen the moral responsibility of either PM or that of Sonia Gandhi, who presides over the alliance with the DMK.
To be one up, PMO has hailed the decision: “We welcome the fact that both the learned judges have completely vindicated the prime minister while appreciating the onerous duties of his office”. Still the officers owe an explanation for sitting over the sanction for 16 months. My feeling is that PMO has grown so large that there is a confusion of authority and duplication of work. PM Jawaharlal Nehru had only one secretary, Tirlok Singh. When Lal Bahadur Shastri became the PM, he chose his secretary L K Jha who began spreading his wings, and began wielding authority. Still, it was a small office. The real expansion was when Mrs Indira Gandhi assumed power. She turned it into a parallel government. Manmohan Singh has kept the format in tact. The PMO has a finger in every pie, all departments of government.
It is also the issue of corruption which is at the core of contempt notice by the Supreme Court against PM Gilani. He was directed to write to the Swiss government to reopen the cases of graft against President Zardari. That General Pervez Musharraf had closed the cases against him and his wife the late Benazir Bhuto through the NRO is a fact. Yet, the Court in its wisdom has reopened the cases of corruption. It has declared the ordinance ultra vires of the constitution. Gilani’s defence is that the president enjoys immunity under the constitution. He (Gilani) is helpless in initiating any proceeding against President Zardari. In a way, both the PMs in India and Pakistan face a moral issue. Gilani can be hauled up for contempt and lose his office. Manmohan Singh can own the moral responsibility for PMO’s lapses and offer to quit. This is normal in democracy. However, the matter will be decided by the elected representatives of Parliament in India. Pakistan has the trappings of democracy, the elected national assembly, but the real power lies with the army.
However, Pakistan has come to have a third chamber, the Supreme Court. That it is being backed by the army is a coincidence. It is the army which has pushed the case of Gilani who had displeased it by the ‘Memogate’. The commission which the SC has appointed is not to the liking of President Zardari and his PM Gilani. But they can do little because the commission has been appointed by the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has retrieved the independence of Pakistan’s judiciary to a large extent. Yet the fact remains that the high courts have no jurisdiction to accept petitions against military courts even in case of civilians during the prosecution. India faces no such problems. But corruption has made every institution effete. Once in a while a Supreme Court decision comes to sustain hope. That is also true of Pakistan.
The writer is a senior Indian journalist.