"It is indeed unfortunate and deeply regrettable that Law Minister Veerappa Moily has chosen to condemn former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha in a language lacking in grace when he stated that failed bureaucrats become saints after retirement," BJP chief spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad told reporters here.
Prasad was referring to a recent statement of Moily in which he said: "when few top officials who could have made a difference in office... having failed to do so, become saints after retirement...I came across the comments of a retired bureaucrat who said in a media interview that every third Indian is corrupt."
Moily was apparently referring to Sinha for contending that one-third of Indians are "utterly corrupt".
Prasad reminded Moily that Sinha was appointed CVC during UPA-I and said he did a "good job" by taking a "very effective stand" on alleged cases of corruption in the 2G spectrum allocation in the department of Telecommunication as also "rank misdeeds" in the organisation of the Commonwealth games.
"Naturally, the government in which Moily is a minister had to face very uncomfortable and embarrassing situation in the country and one can understand his latent anger behind this outburst," Prasad said.
He charged the UPA government with "patronising or overlooking cases of corruption or attempts to condone it."
"In spite of strong objection of Sushma Swaraj, the new CVC was appointed and only yesterday the Supreme Court has issued notice in a scam worth more than Rs 60,000 crore in spectrum allocation in the Department of Telecom where the new CVC was the Secretary..," he said.
The BJP leader said the former CVC had only highlighted the "increasing" role of corruption in the country which is also "gaining respectability".
"...the biggest victim of all this are the poor. In fact the tenure of Manmohan Singh has witnessed some of the worst instances of corruption without any palpable remedial action," he said.
Prasad charged that instead of understanding the message Moily is only trying to shoot the messenger.
"He should not try to demoralise honest and upright officers publicly. As a Minister for Law and Justice it is his duty to uphold law and not forget that corruption is a crime," Prasad added.
