If you ask Pope Francis, ‘Holy Father, what punishment do you think the corrupt deserve?’ he would say, ‘Let them be thrown into the sea, with a millstone tied around their neck.’ This is not a guess, by the way. When the Pope had to preach on this Gospel text (Luke 17: 2), it is the corrupt people in politics, business and religion who came to his mind. How often has the good Pope spoken on corruption and its deadly effects on our lives, especially the lives of the poor!
I have heard even well-educated people argue that corruption does not really affect the poor, because it is the rich and the powerful who give or get a bribe! If these educated persons think a little and interact with common people, see for themselves how they have to suffer and struggle in several ways every single day because of corruption, then they may realize, as Pope Francis does, why God could be so angry and upset by the corrupt. It is because the corrupt thwart God’s plan for this world and harass God’s little children.
One of the reasons why corruption is omnipresent in our country at all levels is the way corrupt people with political power manage to escape from punishment. They resort to several tactics – like bribing judges, threatening witnesses, making use of the loopholes in the judicial system or dragging the cases for years and years.
This column is supposed to hold aloft candles in the dark. If corruption that pervades every aspect of our lives is the darkness, where are the candles? They are the fearless, tireless activists who fight corruption, the honest men in every walk of life who refuse to receive or offer a bribe, and the honest judges who have the courage to punish the corrupt.
The whole of India, for quite some time now, has been talking of such an honest and courageous judge. And, praise God, he happens to be a Catholic. Judge John Michael D’Cunha could not be bought, could not be intimidated and could not be manipulated into letting the eighteen-year-old case drag further on. It was a case against Ms Jayalalitha, then the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, and her associate, Ms. V.K. Sasikala and Sasikala’s nephew.
D’Cunha was born in Gurpur, Kaikamba, near Mangalore, studied at SDM Law College, Mangalore, and started his law practice in 1985. In October 2013, when he was the Additional Judge of the Karnataka High Court, the Supreme Court appointed him as the Special Judge to dispose of the case.
Appointed in October 2013, D’Cunha took little time to show that they can’t play the same old tricks with him. In March 2014, he imposed a fine on Special Public Prosecutor for “repeatedly seeking adjournments since January 27, 2014, without justifiable cause.” In less than a year he delivered his 1136-page verdict, holding the accused guilty of amassing disproportionate assets and imposing a jail term and a fine of Rs 100 crore.
Earlier, in 2004, when he was a Judicial Magistrate at Hubli, he issued a non-bailable warrant against then Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti in connection with her role in the 1994 Hubli riots.
All those who hailed the honest and bold Judge’s verdict were dismayed to see the accused go on appeal and be freed by a Karnataka High Court Judge. The Karnataka government knocked at the gates of the Supreme Court, which, thank God, confirmed Judge D’Cunha’s verdict nearly seventy-five days after Jayalalitha died and just as Sasikala was getting ready to become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.
Pope Francis said once that corruption is a blasphemous way of living, of a world where there is no God, who is Truth, Love and Justice. It may be useful to probe how we, including the clergy and religious, condone and compromise with corruption, while condemning it outwardly.
– Fr M. A. Joe Antony SJ is at present editor, Jivan, the magazine of South Asian Jesuits and the executive secretary of and advisor to the Provincial Superior of Jesuits in Tamil Nadu. For 20 years he edited the New Leader and gave it a new life and reputation.
To subscribe to the magazine Contact Us
