The recent arrest of Tamilnadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha after a Bangalore Court indicted her, should send a strong message to other chief ministers and bureaucrats who have perfected the business of bribe taking to a fine art. Jayalalitha will of course contest this case but having to spend time in jail and having to step down as Chief Minister has had a salutary effect on the lady. Jayalalitha’s conviction happened before of one man who assiduously pursued her corruption cases. BJP member Subramanyam Swamy has been consistent in pursuing the corruption cases against Jayalitha and of putting together all documents that led to her conviction. Swamy has been a Jayalalitha baiter and left no stone unturned to see that justice was served on Jayalalitha. It helps that Swamy is also himself a lawyer with sharp legal acumen.
The result why corruption in states like Meghalaya persists is because there are no public spirited lawyers who would use the Right to Information to follow on the trail of a newspaper report on corruption and prepare a brief for the case. Citizens are busy with their day to day lives and cannot be expected to spend their time doing the rounds of the courts to follow up a corruption case but some lawyers are known to take up public interest litigation cases pro-bono. Indeed one of the reasons why people shy away from courts is because the lawyer’s fees are prohibitive.
There are several cases of corruption in Meghalaya some of which happened a short while after the State was born. The PHE scam in Jowai was one of the first big corruption cases. Then came the Greater Shillong Water Supply Scheme (GSWSS) which also became quite a talking point. Then there is the Health Department scheme which was enquired into by a retired bureaucrat and which clearly indicted a former chief minister but no action has been taken in all three cases. There are several other corruption cases which are talked about but never properly investigated. Some group or individual will have to follow up on these cases and others so that the corrupt do not go off scot-free and there is accountability in the Government system.