Men of steel
The three-member Supreme Court bench which had taken suo motu notice of alleged corruption of Rs22 billion in the Pakistan Steel Mills has had its hands full. The court has heard suggestions that the DG FIA is not interested in getting to the bottom of the matter, the deputy attorney general stated their hands were tied and then backed away from the comment when questioned by Justice Ramday, refusing to say who had tied the knots and the court noted a general lack of willingness on the part of government departments to act morally. This of course is a huge handicap. While the courts continue valiant efforts to root out corruption, and the chief justice has emphasized that those who loot public money will not be spared, the fact also is that goodwill is needed on the part of the government. Without this there can only be limited success in the bid to tackle a problem that is eating away the very soul of our state and destroying public institutions within it. The Pakistan Steel Mills, a giant entity, is reported to have already been left almost hollow by a process of plunder.
All this exposes a great deal about what has gone amiss; at every level we see nepotism, flagrant violations of law, merit and ethics and a readiness to abandon even a pretence of honesty. There is another dimension to this. Unless key investigative agencies are ready and able to perform the duties entrusted to them, we cannot get very far in tackling corruption. As things stand at present, they seem keener to keep the truth hidden. This makes the task of the court a distinctly harder one, given that it can act only on the basis of the evidence laid before it. We must however be grateful that our judges have persevered and that from one institution at least we have a commitment to weed out corruption. The actions taken by courts have revealed a great deal about how corruption takes place and the bonds that link it together. The matter of meting out justice to those wronged by such acts has obviously been taken up as a priority and this is something that offers a ray of hope to lighten up an otherwise formidably dark horizon.
All this exposes a great deal about what has gone amiss; at every level we see nepotism, flagrant violations of law, merit and ethics and a readiness to abandon even a pretence of honesty. There is another dimension to this. Unless key investigative agencies are ready and able to perform the duties entrusted to them, we cannot get very far in tackling corruption. As things stand at present, they seem keener to keep the truth hidden. This makes the task of the court a distinctly harder one, given that it can act only on the basis of the evidence laid before it. We must however be grateful that our judges have persevered and that from one institution at least we have a commitment to weed out corruption. The actions taken by courts have revealed a great deal about how corruption takes place and the bonds that link it together. The matter of meting out justice to those wronged by such acts has obviously been taken up as a priority and this is something that offers a ray of hope to lighten up an otherwise formidably dark horizon.
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