People's victory

The arrest of former Union telecom minister A Raja and his key aides by the CBI in the spectrum allocation scandal is a victory of public opinion, institutional pressure and political considerations of a different kind rather than evidence of the law taking its own course. If the public opinion aroused by media disclosures, the findings of the country’s premier auditing institution, the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and the questioning by the topmost judicial institution, the supreme court,  had not shaken the UPA government, Raja would still have been the telecom minister and would not have been behind bars. Shielding Raja was a political imperative for the government once and the law was made to serve that politics. But public opinion changed the shape of that politics and made Raja a liability, and therefore the law has been forced to take the right direction.

The arrest validates the charges made against Raja and falsifies the stout defence of his conduct, made by the prime minister through months and by the new telecom minister even as recently as last month. The charges against him have certainly to be proved in a court of law, but the arrest shows there is a case against him. It should not be forgotten that the initial response of the UPA to the charges was that there was no such case and that all the actions of the ministry under Raja were above board. It was only under rising public pressure that procedural errors, which pointed more at bureaucratic misdemeanor than at direct involvement of the minister and the lack of oversight of his actions by the prime minister, were conceded. Now that the existence of a prima facie case against him is accepted, those who knowingly defended him should be seen as complicit in his misconduct, if not legally, certainly morally. To claim credit for hauling him before the law is therefore wrong, misplaced and unconvincing.

The arrest is only the first step. It should lead to a fuller investigation of the case, identification of all the beneficiaries of corruption, framing of charges against them, and successful prosecution of the case. It has rarely happened in the country. If the 2G scam case also goes the Bofors way, cynicism and distrust in the system will only increase. The vigil of the people and institutional checks on the system should not flag till all the wrong-doers are finally brought to book.