The NC seems to have taken pride in both scam- happening and in their unearthing which is why somebody from the party claimed that the unearthing of the BOPEE scam spoke for them ( GK, 24 November). What it means is that the exposure of the BOPEE bungling happened because of the some ‘innovative’ initiative of Omar Abdullah-led Government. Naivety has a limit! No saner element can take credit for a thing which has disgraced the entire system. Even if we play the Devil’s Advocate for some time and accept the claim that the unearthing of scam took place of the Government, will that , in any way, exonerate the Government for allowing the scam to take place, in the first place, in spite of warnings from various agencies, as reported in the GK of 25 November. Why play politics on ‘for’ and ‘of’ scams when it is clear that the shameful BOPEE scam happened in the Omar-led Government and, if they claim to unearth it, it is their own misdeed that they brought to light. Whether the scam speaks ‘for’ the Government, or ‘of’ the Government, both prepositions speak for and of the systemic failure under the tutelage of politicians, the CM being no exception. It might appear that the former BOPEE chairman and his close associates indulged in fraudulent ways of selling papers for exorbitant prices to people who could afford to find that huge money. But, on close scrutiny, it speaks of the rot that Omar-led Government is beset with at all levels. People have not yet forgotten the BOSE scandal in which a minister was, allegedly, involved. What happened to the case? There too it was not the minister alone but many BOSE officials who were involved in paper writing for the minister’s relative. How many of them have been punished? Should the NC also take ‘credit’ for not allowing law to take its course in “unearthing” the guilty? The GB Pant Hospital scam still resounds in our ears; the spurious drug supply hasn’t been forgotten yet, but has the probe in these cases been taken to any logical end? The person allegedly involved in the Pant scam has been reinstated and the persons involved in the spurious drug supply are at large outside Kashmir. The NC should understand that taking credit for unearthing the scam is equivalent to unearthing how mismanaged the various organs of the present Government are. Mushtaq Peer headed an institution that acts as an organ of the Government which was sick for many years. What did the government do to treat it and make it healthy? Nothing! In fact, the institution was allowed to get further rotten at the hands of the man whose credentials were always doubtful. How come the NC government chose Peer out of so many teachers in the University (we were 300 odd that time), and on whose recommendation? What criteria were followed when preferring him over all others? The NC might say that their Government alone can’t be held responsible for the wrong doings in the State. Agreed, but when the Government found the wrong things happening, what did it do to stop them? If the newspaper reports are correct, the CID had warned the Government about the BOPEE chairman’s suspicious sojourns to Delhi and his links with some unwanted people. Why didn’t the Government take action then and ask the Chairman why he had spent many days in Delhi? Normally, conducting of exams is the function of the Controller of Exams. Did the former BOPEE chairman bypass him/her and do the job all by himself? It would be quite lousy to think of the system working efficiently if the rulers turn a blind eye to what is rotting the system. It is clear that corruption has taken strong roots in our society with patronage from the rulers! Had the Government taken a strong action in one scam, it would have surely acted as a deterrent in others. On the contrary, the corrupt are patronized and absorbed in Government institutions of great relevance like PSC, BOPEE etc. Knowing that allowing law to take its course and probing the matters impartially will land the Government in trouble, it is bent upon making the newly established institutions redundant. Look at how Right to Information Act had worked wonders in unearthing malpractices and mis- governance in various departments and how the Omar Government decided to clip its powers. Didn’t the former Central Information Commissioner decry what Omar was doing with this Act? Did the Information Commission here not umpteen times talk against making his office irrelevant by bringing in changes in the legislation? Shouldn’t the NC take ‘credit’ for this also, making irrelevant what it claims to be ‘innovative’ initiatives of their CM? Likewise, the Accountability of Commission was not allowed to function properly because that would mean taking into account many malpractices that some ministers in the Omar-led Government have allegedly been involved in? Who has so far been made accountable to it? Now, we have the Vigilance Commission. Will it be allowed to work independently? Obviously not! That would mean endangering the socalled honesty and transparency of the Government that the NC brags about a lot. Who knows what will happen in the BOPEE scam! Given the record of the Government, we should expect no different results this time also if the courts do not intervene. People are pining their hopes on the Judiciary. The present scam has tarnished the image of the BOPEE and pained those who had done well in exams but couldn’t make it to the profession. Therefore, unearthing alone will not mitigate their pain; punishing the guilty might! For this, we need to bring the erring candidates and their parents also to book and punish them for the crime that they committed. The least we can expect is the cancellation of all fraudulent admissions, jail for parents who paid the money and a severe punishment for all BOPEE officials who are involved in the crime. Will the NC do it and take credit for it? Wait and Watch!
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:28:24 +0000
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