The Central Vigilance Commission has done well in resurrecting an old debate on the culpability of bribe-givers and takers by suggesting that the corporate sector “should be brought under the purview of the proposed Anti-corruption Bill to check graft”. Understandably, this view has been immediately challenged by a large section of “box-wallahs”, big and small, who would like to keep doing their own thing while authority is hauled up for “breaking the law”.

After all, as they argue, there is no statutory code of conduct governing their commercial actions as far giving a bribe is concerned, unless they can be implicated through the route of “aiding and abetting” corruption, indulged in by officialdom. So, why plan legislation which will also draw them directly into the net which, as they see it, will make life even more problematic for them, hemmed in as they are by a plethora of laws which is already making “flexible functioning” difficult?

CORPORATE DEFENCE

As one doyen of the corporate sector has put it, “Companies are not Government institutions and function independently. Hence, the relevance of the Lokpal Bill for companies needs to be seen.” Indeed, to those who argue in favour of keeping the corporate sector out of the legal net as far as the act of bribing is concerned, a suggestion floated some time ago, that immunity can be extended to the bribe-givers in an effort to reduce the volume of bribes, will no doubt be inordinately attractive.

The defence will run something like this: In this time of intense competition in the corporate realm, he who can get his way with the authorities (in whatever sphere) can see it as one more feather in his cap in the general objective of getting the better of one's rivals. It is just plain and simple hard luck for the bribe-taker if he is apprehended for breaking established precepts of conduct in the act of taking a bribe. At the end of it all, it is his problem, and he should have been more careful with his actions. On no account should the bribe-giver be implicated, because, well, a gift is a gift is a gift.

EQUALLY CULPABLE

But, of course, this is just one way of looking at a problem which, by common consent, is diligently eating away at the entrails of the nation, and, slowly but surely, sapping the life-blood of commercial and non-commercial behaviour (social behaviour, generally), which ought to be, generally speaking, upright and “above board”. Quite apart from the thought that the phenomenon of bribery crucially involves both the extension and acceptance of a bribe, and is therefore an integral whole comprising two intertwined, mutually-inclusive aspects — the inference being that both the actions should be equally culpable in the eyes of the law — the act of bribing an official on the part of a company also, at once, disturbs the idea of a level playing field, which is sacrosanct in a republic like ours, if corporate democracy and efficiency are to flourish.

Therefore, “aiding and abetting” an act of bribery should become a direct ground for hauling up companies under the law of the land. It is, of course, an entirely different issue if this should fall under the proposed Lokpal or if laws should be framed under some other dispensation to control the growing scourge of corporate corruption involving officialdom. But, clearly, such legislation is absolutely imperative at this point of time. After all, in the UK, a bribe-giver is equally culpable as is the bribe-taker. So, what is stopping us from enacting similar legislation?

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