Institutional Decay — When Democracy's Watchdogs Become Captives of the Executive

Imagine a massive match underway on the cricket ground.

Even before the match begins, both teams find out that the umpire standing on the pitch has taken off the impartial cap of umpiring and quietly slipped on the jersey of the ruling team! He gives ‘out’ on every good shot played by the opposing team, and turns a blind eye to every no-ball bowled by his favoured side.

Would any sports lover call such a match an ‘honest contest’? Would the trophy of that match retain any moral legitimacy?

Today, precisely this terrible tragedy is unfolding with our country’s democratic system!

In any modern constitutional democracy, there are four key pillars that keep vigil over governmental authoritarianism:

1. Election Commission: To conduct free, fair, and transparent elections.
2. Investigative Agencies (CBI, ED, IT): To act against corruption and economic offences without any discrimination.
3. Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC): To account for every single rupee of the public exchequer.
4. Supreme Court and High Courts (Judiciary): To safeguard the Constitution and citizens’ fundamental rights.

In Chapter 14 (‘Incomplete Democracy: Institutional Weakness and Social Transition in India’) of his book ‘Ginti Se Satta Tak’, N. Singh raises this startling question: When these four watchdogs, instead of acting as impartial umpires, turn into political weapons of the ruling party, does India’s democracy not become merely a hollow sham?

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Four Monstrous Forms of Institutional Decay

1. Selective Use of Investigative Agencies (Weaponization of Agencies):
   • Statistics reveal that over the last ten years, more than 95% of the political cases registered by the ED and the CBI have been exclusively against opposition leaders!
   • And the greatest miracle is that the moment a corrupt leader quits an opposition party and joins the ruling party, all cases pending against him are dropped overnight or put into cold storage! In common parlance, people call this ‘washing machine politics’.
2. The Plummeting Credibility of the Election Commission:
   • Excluding the Chief Justice of India (CJI) from the selection panel for the Chief Election Commissioner by enacting legislation, and selecting Election Commissioners solely by a majority of cabinet ministers, is the murder of institutional autonomy.
   • Turning a blind eye to inflammatory speeches by ruling-party leaders while instantly slapping notices on the opposition raises grave questions about the Election Commission’s impartiality.
3. The Silence of the CAG:
   • Before 2014, the CAG’s reports on the 2G spectrum and coal block allocations toppled governments in the country. Today, the CAG’s reports are not presented in Parliament for months on end, or no debate takes place on them at all.
4. The Allure of Post-Retirement Government Largesse:
   • When a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or an Election Commissioner anticipates landing a Rajya Sabha seat or a gubernatorial post the very month after retiring, will they ever muster the courage to deliver a tough ruling against the government?

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Independent Institutions versus Captive Institutions: A Comparison

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Bitter Truth from the Book: N. Singh’s Blunt Warning

Author N. Singh writes in Chapter 14 of his book ‘Ginti Se Satta Tak’:

“Democracy is not merely the name of a vote-casting machine; democracy stands upon the spine of those independent institutions that hold the arrogance of power in check. When institutions, instead of being impartial umpires, begin playing in the jersey of the ruling team, the outcome of the match is predetermined. T.N. Seshan proved that if an Election Commissioner possesses a spine, even the mightiest bahubali (political strongman) begins to tremble. But today, the heads of our institutions have dropped to their knees before power. This decay does not belong to any single party alone; it is the degradation of the very soul of the Indian Republic that our forebears nurtured with their sacrifice!”
— N. Singh (Ginti Se Satta Tak, pp. 140–141)

The author further points the way to a solution:

“Until the opposition, the Chief Justice, and civil society hold veto power in the appointment of institutional heads, these institutions will remain nothing more than caged parrots of the regime.”
— (Ginti Se Satta Tak, p. 146)

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Four Legal Measures to Restore Institutional Integrity

1. A Genuine Tripartite Selection Panel: Appointments of the Election Commission, CBI, CVC, and ED directors must only be made by a panel where the consensus of all three—the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Chief Justice of India (CJI)—is mandatory.
2. Statutory Requirement of a Cooling-off Period: For judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, Election Commissioners, and defence chiefs, there must be a complete ban on accepting any government post, commission, or political ticket for at least 3 years following retirement.
3. Legislation for Agency Independence: Along the lines of the UK and the US, the CBI and the ED should be made independent statutory bodies accountable entirely to Parliament, not subservient lackeys of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
4. Strict Punitive Action Against Biased Officials: If it is proven in court that an official registered a false case with malicious intent, their service must be terminated immediately and they must be sent to jail.

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A Question for Reflection (The Book’s Message)

If the verdict of the law in this country begins to be decided by which party’s flag the accused holds aloft, will any ordinary citizen ever be safe in this country?

To understand this deepest institutional crisis of Indian democracy, the helplessness of constitutional watchdogs, and the path to systemic reform, this fourteenth chapter of N. Singh’s acclaimed book ‘Ginti Se Satta Tak’ is essential reading for every citizen and competitive exam aspirant.