The Hindu : Petrol, patronage, probe

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Monday, Dec 23, 2002

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Petrol, patronage, probe

WHAT WAS PLAIN as day from the very beginning has now received judicial certification. The manner to address `Pumpgate' — the dubious allotments of petrol pumps, gas agencies and kerosene dealerships — was not through an omnibus notification which cancelled every allotment and which made no distinction between those that were possibly irregular and those that were above board. In the course of its order quashing the notification as "arbitrary", the Supreme Court has roundly hauled up the Vajpayee Government for the manner in which it has handled the entire issue, which is essentially about how political patronage influenced the process of allotments. As the two-member Bench observed, "rotten apples cannot be equated with good apples"; in other words, it was wholly improper to club allotments against which there were "not even an insinuation" with those parcelled out "on account of political connection and patronage".

As the Court suggested, in addressing the problem by issuing the impugned notification, the Centre had resorted to a cure that was worse than the disease. The notification would have deprived large numbers of people of their livelihood for no apparent fault of their own. It also had another disquieting effect — that of scuttling a probe into the dubious allotments. It is in this connection that the Court made the most damning observations about the Vajpayee Government, suggesting that its motives for going ahead with the en masse cancellation were based on winning popular accolades and to "enable it to escape the scrutiny of allotments". In other words, the cancellation order — which was held up by the Centre as illustration of its commitment to probity and of its determination to mend a possible act of wrongdoing — was in effect a clever stratagem to forestall an honest inquiry into why so many allotments went to MPs, MLAs, their wives and their relatives. Rather than pretend that cancelling the allotments is equivalent to cancelling out the scandal, what the Centre ought to have done was to institute a probe into those allotments that were unusual or evoked legitimate suspicion.

The Court has compensated for this failure by appointing a two-member committee comprising retired judges to probe into 413 cases of `tainted' or possibly irregular allotments. As a result of this, it should be possible to get to the real truth about the extent of the influence of patronage and nepotism on the process of allocation. The probe should also determine how the allotment process — which was touted as independent and immune from the kind of political influence that influenced allotments earlier — could have turned up a roster of allottees that in some places reads like a Sangh Parivar laundry list. Identifying what went wrong could be the first step towards ensuring that future allotments are not marred by apprehensions about nepotism and patronage.

At the ground level, the Supreme Court's order will come as a huge relief not only to genuine allottees (who risked losing their allotments because of a drastic and ill-conceived order that failed to segregate legitimate from illegitimate) but also to public sector oil companies (which found that the controversy had virtually brought the expansion of retail networks to a standstill by placing a freeze on further allotments). All those who believe that the public has a right to know why so many agencies and dealerships were parcelled out to those in politics or those close to politicians will also welcome it. Having said this, it is not going to be an easy task for the committee set up by the Supreme Court to find out which of the prima facie irregular allotments were marred by patronage or nepotism. Theoretically, it is possible for a `political' allottee to succeed in securing an allotment through merit alone and therefore the challenge lies in finding a foolproof way of identifying those allotments that were secured wholly by irregular and illegitimate means. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court order underlines a basic truth: `Pumpgate' must be dealt with in a manner which seeks to get to the bottom of the scam, not merely through a cancellation order that seeks to deflect attention away from it.

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