Parliament is supposed to be a house of people's representatives. Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) is supposed to be the highest investigating body. However in practice members of committee are not people's representatives. All of them represent their party and not the people who elected them. Investigations are biased and are always in line with interests of parties and not that of nation. There had been many JPCs appointed for investigations. None had succeeded in finding culprits and booking them. Not a single paisa could be recovered from culprits. Expenditure on such committees had been 10 times or more compared to money scam the committees were supposed to investigate. Considering poor performance of such committees there is a need to modify the system.
Investigations through judicial committees (JC) show better results, not totally satisfactory though. Appointment of judges on such committees is totally controlled by the ruling party. These committees do not complete their investigations within stipulated period. Many times the investigations do not hold any specific person for the scam. However, in spite of such shortcomings JCs have proved batter than JPCs.
These shortcomings could be got over by appointing a JC first who would establish whether the scam took place, extent of scam, persons involved in scam, irregularities found while investigations etc. JC should recommend whether further investigations are needed, area for further investigation specifying names of persons who are likely to be responsible and submit report to the parliament. Ruling party should then table the report and discuss whether JPC is required. After through discussions the matter may be referred to the President for taking further action. The President should consult Prime Minister, leader of opposition and chief Justice of supreme court. President also should consult experts in the field of scam subject. Based on these discussions/consultations the President should take a decision regarding appointment of JPC. President may direct to accept JC report and take action.
There may be objection to this procedure. However, time involved would be much less than the time taken by past JPCs.
No comments:
Post a Comment