Judge calls for end to corruption

Justice Amitav Roy, who delivered a separate judgement in the DA case with additional reasons, deprecated the prevalence of corruption in society, particularly among public servants and called for a crusade to end this menace.

He said a growing impression in contemporary existence seems to acknowledge, the all pervading pestilent presence of corruption almost in every walk of life, as if to rest reconciled to the octopoid stranglehold of this malaise with helpless awe. He said corruption is a vice of insatiable avarice for self-aggrandisement by the unscrupulous, taking unfair advantage of their power and authority. Those in public office also breach the institutional norms, mostly backed by minatory loyalists.

Expressing his anguish, Justice Roy said both the corrupt and the corrupter are indictable and answerable to society and the country as a whole. This pernicious menace stemming from moral debasement of the culpables, apart from destroying the sinews of the nation's structural and moral set-up, forges an unfair advantage of the dishonest over the principled, widening as well the divide between the haves and have-nots.

He said this has a demoralising bearing on those who are ethical and honest. This virulent affliction triggers an imbalance in society’s existential stratas and stalls constructive progress in the overall well-being of the nation, besides disrupting its dynamics of fiscal governance. It encourages defiance of the rule of law and the propensities for easy materialistic harvests, whereby society's soul stands defiled and devalued.