'3 Revenue Ministers made money on transfers'

In the book, Grit That Defied Odds (Reflections of a Revenue Officer (Konark Publishers), Pande doesn’t name these Ministers but writes. “One of them served in the early eighties. The other two Ministers of State served in the late nineties. An effective tool of administration and preventive vigilance was thus converted by them into a money-making device.”

The message, Pande claims, which was on many occasions “conveyed” by the Ministers through their personal staff — by way of justification — was that such postings or transfers were being pressed by them to either discharge their duty as a “representative of the people” or as an “obligation” to their constituency or party. “On other occasions it was conveyed that the money demanded and collected was meant for party funds.”

Many senior bureaucrats also played along, Pande alleges. “Senior bureaucrats, including some at the highest levels, had no qualms...so long as it helped them to secure their position or get a particular post or some post- retirement assignment or even a couple of months extension. They are as guilty of destroying the system as the politicians.”

Pande retired six years ago as Special Secretary in the Economic Intelligence Bureau. Speaking to The Indian Express, he said that his impression is that “ground realities, manipulations and corruption in the Revenue Department are no different today” from what he has described in his book.

Pande argues that with multi-party-coalition governments coming to power, it’s the Revenue Department and the post of Minister of State for Revenue (mostly given to coalition parties) that becomes vulnerable “since traits of State administrations effortlessly infiltrated into the Central administration.”

“It became more rampant from 1996 in every Central Ministry, with each coalition party, particularly the regional ones, aiming to make their presence felt by securing for their candidates sensitive posts. The Finance Ministry was an exception for a while with Shri Chidambaram (as Finance Minister) keeping this trend at bay until 1998. The virus finally settled down firmly on the entire central administrative structure post-1998 — the presence of touts and middlemen, clad in dhotis or safaris, some even doubling up as astrologers and soothsayers is now a common sight in the corridors of power,” Pande writes.

The Revenue Department, according to Pande, reached its “nadir” by end-2001 in the respect of quality of administration, level of corruption and overall image. His reasoning, “Dubious elements, who had remained comparatively subdued between 1991-98 surfaced with renewed vigour. The negative effects of multi-party coalition Government were nowhere more glaring than in this (Revenue) Department.”

Pande has claimed that even in the DRI, requests for release of seized goods or waivers of penalties from “higher authorities” continued in the late ‘90s. Once, he received a call from a “high profile Cabinet Minister” in connection with a case where Customs evasion of Rs 12 crore was finally made out. “This call was followed by two more calls...the tone each time was more hectoring than on the previous occasion. After a flurry of accusations that the department was corrupt and was harassing an innocent person, the demand to release the seized goods worth several crores was put forward. The Cabinet Minister stopped telephoning after the third occasion, when politely told that since prima facie it was a case of smuggling, the investigations would go on...this was not the only case where the politicians, including the minister of State in the Revenue Department, under whom the Directorate worked or his office had made calls in respect of such high stake cases during investigations.”

Pande’s book comes at a time when retired top officials in intelligence and investigation agencies have been writing their memoirs. He has juxtaposed “profiles of courage” of investigators with a critique of a system where he says honest and dedicated officers have been reduced to a “minority” and are, in fact, an “endangered species.”

Calling the capital a haven for “touts and networkers,” Pande says that as Customs Chief, requests for customs waivers and clearances came within minutes of files landing on his desk. He writes: “The calls, messages and personal messages could be from anywhere, the Minister’s office, my own or any other Minister, some from the President’s Secretariat, MPs, politicians, Secretaries, heads of the department, senior bureaucrats and even businessmen, requests on such a scale could not have been made without a hope of success.”