New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a PIL seeking a direction to the Centre, states and union territories to set up expert committees to suggest steps for improving India's "pathetic" ranking on the global Corruption Perception Index. Terming the reliefs sought as "legislative functions", a bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi dismissed the PIL.
The top court, however, granted the liberty to lawyer and petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay to make a representation to authorities. "Considering the scope of the petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution, we find it extremely difficult to entertain this petition under Article 32. The petition is therefore dismissed. It is however open to the petitioner to make appropriate representation to the concerned authorities/functionaries," the bench said in its order.
The PIL, which was filed in 2020, has said that India has been ranked at the 80th position among 180 countries and territories in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) prepared by Transparency International. The plea had sought the constitution of expert committees to examine good practices of the countries ranked among the top 20 in the Corruption Perception Index and take steps to weed out bribery, black money generation, among others.
Besides states and union territories, Upadhyay, in his PIL filed through lawyer Ashwani Kumar Dubey, had made the Law Commission of India and the ministries of home affairs and law and justice as parties. The plea had also sought a direction to the Law Commission to suggest steps to remove the menace of corruption, black money generation and 'benami' transaction, and improve India's ranking in the Corruption Perception Index.
"The injury caused to people is extremely large because corruption is an insidious plague, having a wide range of corrosive effects on the country," it had said. "It undermines democracy and rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life and allows organised crime like separatism, terrorism, naxalism, radicalism, gambling, smuggling, kidnapping, money laundering and extortion and other threats to human security to flourish, the plea had said.
The petition had then said that due to massive corruption, even after 73 years of independence, 50 per cent of the population is in distress and facing hardships in livelihood. (PTI)
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