It is indeed a telling coincidence that Pramod Mahajan when abbreviated reads PM. Even after being shunted out of the PMO and then made an RS MP instead, this heavyweight who throws his weight around a bit too much, seems to play the Super PM with aplomb.
Surely, such backroom boys who revel as high profile fixers have become the bane of Indian politics but unfortunately, owing to their uncanny ability to remain in the shadows and slick, slimy modus operandi, their machinations rarely get to see the light of the day. Instead, it is the usual suspects, who happen to be more vociferous, who are hauled over the coals for things they never did and could not have ever done.
The allusion is to the shoddy controversy over the spate of bureaucratic transfers that have been effected with a sinister timing to coincide with the political turmoil largely projected as emanating from Poes Garden. The gullible media and its vulnerable consumers have once again fallen for the familiar line of ‘Blame it on Jaya’, while all along it has been the aforementioned tribe of fixers which has been working overtime to get even with dissenters in the bureaucracy as also to reward the loyal among them.
And they pounced on the opportunity when they found one, implementing their own agenda very unobtrusively while drowning this reality in the chorus of criticism that has been deftly misdirected at the only source of all their torment. Two birds with one stone, one could hear them chuckling under their breath.
A Supreme Court directive of 1997 in the Vineet Narain case clearly says that an officer of any investigative agency, who is involved in a sensitive case should not be transferred without reference to it (Supreme Court). It is not that the Finance Minister or the Super PM are unaware of the existence of this directive. Yet if they have gone ahead with the transfer of Bezbaruah, it is because they not only had their own axe to grind, but also found in Jaya an alibi to push through their plot. Bezbaruah who still has two years to go in service is sure to challenge his transfer on the grounds that it goes against the Supreme Court directive.
And going by the pace of the legal process in the country, though he is most likely to be reinstated, it may turn out to be a case of justice denied because of delay, as much water would have flowed in the interregnum. For one, as per Section 41 of the FERA, the crucial ED records pertaining to critical cases are to be kept for a maximum period of six months from seizure and will have to be returned after the lapse of the said period. However, the deadline for retention of records can be extended through an administrative order by the ED.
Now, we should ask why there can be no administrative order to extend the deadline of keeping those sensitive records in the possession of the ED. Simple. The ED does not have a full time Director now who is the sole person empowered to issue an order extending the deadline. An acting Director who is sure to double up in Bezbaruah’s place now cannot do so. And by the time Bezbaruah gets his pound of justice, the six month period might have ended, all the seized records would have reverted to the beneficiary, which bird would have literally flown the coop to legal safety.
All very well for the perpetrators of this administrative sham while all along it is somebody else who is left bearing the cross for the simple reason that she had made bold to call the bluff of the BJP double-talk and dare the mighty RSS that is the real puppeteer behind the masked marionette which is what the PM(the real one) is today.
Now one will wonder who that favourite bird is for whose freedom the BJP is leaving no stone unturned in this hoary golden jubilee year of India’s independence. Genuine champions of press freedom would be painfully aware of recent developments- or is it degeneration?-in the media, especially with regard to a powerful newspaper chain whose owner has been under a cloud for alleged FERA violations and has been subject to intense investigations by the ED of which Bezbaruah is, or rather was, the chief.
The baron, in keeping with the habit of barons, promptly raised a hue and cry over this ‘assault’ on press freedom through front page proprietorials, blissfully ignoring the fact that press freedom does not allow for commission of business indiscretions which may have been on the wrong side of law.
Yet the trio of FM, Super PM and a Super Bureaucrat, who himself had nurtured an animosity towards the shunted Bezbaruah, have jointly and severally thought it fit to grant freedom to a dubious champion of press freedom for considerations better left unsaid.
A word about this Super Bureaucrat who has been given a super promotion. Again, his transfer has been projected by the thriving tribe of Goebbels in BJP as a move to propitiate the lady from Chennai. If so, then N.K.Singh would most certainly have found himself either in the dusty Archives department or cooled his heels in some cultural ministry or the other.
How can he land in the PMO, where he can have access to all files including those pertaining to portfolios held by AIADMK ministers, if Jayalalitha did not want him in the Finance ministry? Here again, as in the case of Bezbaruah, the fixers in the BJP have only secured their own interests while making a martyr out of an undeserving but self-serving bureaucrat.
Similar is the case of N.K.Singh’s replacement, Javed Choudhary. He is the one who as Enforcement Director initiated FERA cases against several of Jayalalitha’s associates and it would be utterly foolish to believe that she would have wanted him as Revenue Secretary, if she had a choice.
Yet the propagandists of the Sangh Parivar would like everyone to know that much has already been done to placate Jayalalitha, their perpetual whipping girl, while all through their only aim is to implement their own saffron agenda through meticulous infiltration of the bureaucracy.
These sordid behind the scene machinations combined with a skillful diversionary rhetoric is typical of the RSS and bodes ill for the country as it is an indication of a cancerous spread of the Sangh’s perilous ideologies into the backbone of Indian administration, which is what the bureaucracy is.
There is however no justification for the nation to undergo such turmoil when it is at its most testing crossroads. The pros, cons and confusions over Cauvery, notwithstanding, it is vital that all parties put their heads together to clear the cobwebs in their minds and start working on a basis of mutual trust.
But the ball most certainly is in the BJP’s court as so far it has done nothing to earn its allies’ undiluted trust and instead has only revelled in presenting a picture of feigned hurt and holier than thou image. The facade will not last any longer.
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