A Summer Of Scandals

As skeletons tumble out daily in the wake of the Punjab Public Service Commission (ppsc) scandal, those in top positions in the state legislature, executive, police and the judiciary have begun to sweat under their collars. The scam that culminated with the arrest of the tainted ppsc chairman, Ravinder Paul Singh Sidhu, on March 25 while accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from an excise inspector has reached a stage where further investigations are bound to lead to some of the most influential addresses in the state. And this, investigating officials fear, could slow down the case in the days to come.

Admits IG (Vigilance) A.P. Pandey: "Getting evidence is not impossible but it's very tedious." Exactly how tedious, another senior police official points out: "People from the police, the judiciary and the administration, all are involved. And political backing is required to take this scandal to its logical end. But it will be an uphill task given that top-level people from the government and various political parties have either connived or benefited from the corruption spawned by Sidhu in the ppsc."

Already, the confession before a magistrate by Jagman Singh, Sidhu's friend and associate, has revealed that politicians freely patronised the ppsc chairman. Jagman confessed to having leaked several ppsc question papers to the son of 'Kala', a trusted aide of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. But even more shocking is his revelation that he visited the house of a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to deliver a leaked question paper the night before a ppsc examination.

Jagman, in his confession before the magistrate, states clearly: "Once he (Sidhu) sent me with one question paper to a house in Sector 24 (names two sitting high court judges). I do not exactly remember whether it was the house of (repeats the names of the judges) one or the other as I went there in the night. It was in the last six months of 2001 and I met with an elderly Hindu gentleman who brought me inside to enable me to make the girl understand the question paper, again said to hand over the paper to the girl personally. The question paper that was handed over to the girl in that house in Sector 24 was taken back the next day very early in the morning."

Jagman has now pleaded before the magistrate's court in Kharar, outside Chandigarh, to allow him to turn approver in the case. The investigators could ask for nothing more as Jagman has been a very crucial catch. It was his revelations that led to the recovery of over Rs 10 crore in hard cash from several bank lockers operated by Sidhu and his family, besides information about his assets worth Rs 15 crore. Jagman has also described Sidhu's modus operandi in detail for the investigators. From his identikit emerges the picture of an overwhelmingly greedy man who refused to share his booty with anyone.

According to the vigilance bureau, there was nothing sophisticated about Sidhu's operation. The shortlisted candidates would be called to his house in Sector 9 or to his mother's house in Sector 10 in Chandigarh and papers would be leaked to them a day prior to the examination. The aspiring candidates would then be kept in safe custody till the next morning to avoid further leaking after which they were taken directly to the examination centre. For wards of vvips and the well-heeled, the question papers would be delivered to their homes on the eve of the examination and collected early next morning. Most often, Jagman was the man who did the job for Sidhu.

For those who still could not do well in the exam, there was yet another way out—of course at a price. Sidhu would send their answer sheets to select examiners. Accompanied would be a list of the candidates' roll numbers and respective marks to be awarded.

And if the leaking of examination papers was done brazenly, the job interviews were manipulated even more blatantly. For a lecturership in universities, those who paid in lakhs had the post reserved and the interview process made just a customary ritual for them. How much a candidate paid was commensurate with the job he wanted (see Price Catch).

The extent to which corruption had struck root in the ppsc under Sidhu can be gauged from the fact that he had a ring of touts placed in virtually every public service department, be it administration, the police, judiciary, agricultural bodies or even educational institutions. The arrest of one such Sidhu tout, Paramjeet Singh Pammi, on April 22 and his confession to the police that he collected Rs 55 lakh for three jobs turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. In all, the ppsc under Sidhu made about 3,500 appointments and many of these are said to be suspect.

What drove Sidhu to amassing so much ill-gotten wealth is a mystery. He comes from an affluent landed family and is an alumnus of Delhi's St Stephen's College. His lavish lifestyle had never seemed to exhaust his resources. For a while, he worked as a special correspondent with The Hindu before he was handpicked to head the ppsc by the then Congress chief minister, Harcharan Singh Brar, six years ago. Sidhu flaunted his constitutional appointment and functioned like a despot in the commission from the day he took over, reducing other members to nobodies.

According to a journalist who knew Sidhu, he was not very happy with his job in the fourth estate. All along he had dreamed of joining the civil service. But though he passed the examination, he couldn't clear the interview. He then set his sights on becoming someone who had the authority to hire bureaucrats. The ppsc chairmanship was the job he wanted. And he lobbied with Brar and got it. Recalls the friend: "As a journalist, he was arrogant and treated his colleagues, some of whom are now senior editors, with total contempt. My memories of him are of a man who was self-centred, class-conscious and power-hungry. He looked down on everyone."

The initial shock and outrage over, a political twist is now emerging in the scam. The recently-elected Punjab CM Amarinder Singh is using the Sidhu scandal to get his own back on predecessor Badal. In fact, Sidhu's sacking was one of the promises Amarinder made during his poll campaign. Very senior police officials confide that after taking over as CM, Amarinder had given them a free hand to expose Sidhu.

True to his word, Amarinder kicked off his 'clean-up corruption' campaign on April 22 by quashing the ppsc's recruitment to 639 posts due to be notified by the government. His decision to review all 3,446 appointments made during Sidhu's tenure, including 91 for the Punjab Civil Service and allied services, has sent jitters across the state administration.

Encouraged, an upbeat CM is now pushing the drive further. He has appointed a one-man judicial commission headed by retired Punjab and Haryana High Court judge A.S. Garg to probe irregularities committed by the previous Akali Dal-led regime. Given his pre-poll commitment to expose the alleged Rs 3,500 crore worth of assets amassed by Badal during his tenure, the commission's report could unleash a storm in Punjab politics. For the people of Punjab, the summer of scandals has just begun.

Meanwhile, Sidhu, lodged in a Patiala jail, will need all the help from his bureaucrat and politician friends to stave off the heat. In fact, there are many in Chandigarh keeping their fingers crossed hoping that the ppsc chairman does not spill the beans to the police. For if he does, the vips in Punjab will regret they ever went to him to pass the ppsc examinations.