India must learn a lesson from Italy on how to speed up investigative and judicial processes against corruption and bribery.
India must learn a lesson from Italy on how to speed up investigative and judicial processes against corruption and bribery. It also has more reason to do so: India is one of the world’s biggest importers of arms and defence equipment, and corruption is high up on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda. On Friday a Milan court sentenced two top executives of Finmeccanica, Giuseppe Orsi and Bruno Spagnolini, to four-and-a-half years in jail for false accounting to hide bribery and corruption in the sale of 12 VVIP helicopters to India for over Rs 3,600 crores. The bribe component was reportedly Rs 423 crores.
In India, however, both the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate are still labouring over the 2013 case, where they are probing former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi and his brothers, who allegedly benefited in the scandal and even attaching their properties as these were proved to have been bought from the proceeds of this crime. They have also booked a host of others. But one doesn’t know when this investigation will end, when a trial will start and finally whether a conviction, if any, will come in the lifetime of the accused.
This unfortunately happens in India in most bribery and corruption scandals and crimes involving the rich and famous. It must be acknowledged, however, that in the case of politicians like NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, former Maharashtra deputy CM, and his son and nephew, the CBI succeeded in putting them in jail on charges of corruption and money-laundering.
