Pande argues that with multi-party-coalition governments coming to power, it’s the Revenue Department and the post of Minister of State for Revenue (mostly given to coalition parties) that becomes vulnerable “since traits of State administrations effortlessly infiltrated into the Central administration.”

“It became more rampant from 1996 in every Central Ministry, with each coalition party, particularly the regional ones, aiming to make their presence felt by securing for their candidates sensitive posts. The Finance Ministry was an exception for a while with Shri Chidambaram (as Finance Minister) keeping this trend at bay until 1998. The virus finally settled down firmly on the entire central administrative structure post-1998 — the presence of touts and middlemen, clad in dhotis or safaris, some even doubling up as astrologers and soothsayers is now a common sight in the corridors of power,” Pande writes.

The Revenue Department, according to Pande, reached its “nadir” by end-2001 in the respect of quality of administration, level of corruption and overall image. His reasoning, “Dubious elements, who had remained comparatively subdued between 1991-98 surfaced with renewed vigour. The negative effects of multi-party coalition Government were nowhere more glaring than in this (Revenue) Department.”

Pande has claimed that even in the DRI, requests for release of seized goods or waivers of penalties from “higher authorities” continued in the late ‘90s. Once, he received a call from a “high profile Cabinet Minister” in connection with a case where Customs evasion of Rs 12 crore was finally made out. “This call was followed by two more calls...the tone each time was more hectoring than on the previous occasion. After a flurry of accusations that the department was corrupt and was harassing an innocent person, the demand to release the seized goods worth several crores was put forward. The Cabinet Minister stopped telephoning after the third occasion, when politely told that since prima facie it was a case of smuggling, the investigations would go on...this was not the only case where the politicians, including the minister of State in the Revenue Department, under whom the Directorate worked or his office had made calls in respect of such high stake cases during investigations.”

... contd.