UPSC IAS exam preparation - Ethics and Values - Lecture 12

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Administrative ethics - Part 2

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4.0 Need for administrative ethics

The purposes of having a code of ethics for administration are manifold. Some of the major objectives sought to be achieved are:

1. To check the arbitrary activities of civil servants.
2. To promote the sense of administrative responsibility.
3. To establish and promote the correct relations between the citizen and the civil service.
4. To cultivate high standards of conduct among civil servants.                                                
5. To preserve and promote social welfare, public interest, and common good.
6. To control that part of administrative power and discretion which cannot be controlled by formal laws, methods, and procedures.
7. To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of administrative process.           
8. To strengthen the legitimacy and credibility of public administration.                         
9. To stabilise and harmonise the relations between the civil servants and the political executives. 
10. To foster and maintain high morals among all categories of civil servants.

Highlighting the importance of administrative ethics, P.R. Dubhashi said, "It is of utmost importance that the public administration should be efficient but it is even more important that it should be ethical. It is said of an individual that if character is lost, everything is lost. It could be stated about public administration, that if ethics is lost, everything is lost."

5.0 COMMITTEES ON ETHICS

American Doughlas Committee: At the time of Second World War (1939-45), the American society witnessed various cases of corruption, business malpractices, illicit operations, wheeling-dealing, and unhealthy nexus between politicians, administration and business. Hence, the American Senate (Upper House of the Congress) appointed a sub-committee under the chairmanship of Paul Doughlas, a member of the Senate. The committee's report on Ethical Standards in Government caught the attention not only in US but all over the world.

British Nolan Committee: In 1994, the British Government appointed a Committee on Standards in Public Life under the chairmanship of Lord Nolan. The committee recommended seven principles to ensure highest standards in public life. These principles must be observed by the holders of all public offices. These are as follows: 

1. Selflessness
2. Integrity
3. Objectivity
4. Accountability
5. Openness
6. Honesty
7. Leadership

Indian Committees: The following committees have brought out the prevalence of corruption and decline in the administrative ethics in India:

1. Bengal Administration Enquiry Committee (1944-45) headed by Rowlands
2. A.D. Gorwala's Report on Public Administration (1951)
3. Railway Corruption Enquiry Committee (1953-55) chaired by Acharya J B Kripalani
4. Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption (1962-64)

N.N. Vohra Committee: On 9 July, 1993 this committee was appointed to examine charges of corruption involving politicians and general perception of criminalization of politics. In 1995, report was laid before both Houses of Parliament.

The Committee in its report, inter alia, pointed out that "the nexus between the criminal gangs, police, bureaucracy and politicians" had come out clearly in various parts of the country. The existing criminal justice system, which was essentially designed to deal with the individual offences/crimes, was unable to deal with the activities of the mafia; the provisions of law in regard to economic offences were found to be weak and there were insurmountable legal difficulties in attaching/confiscating the properties acquired through mafia activities.

The report suggested setting up of a nodal agency under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, to be handled directly by the Union Home Secretary, who would be assisted by one or more selected officers of the Ministry for the collation and compilation of all information received from different intelligence agencies.

The All-Party Meeting in 1995 took the following decisions. 

1. Declaration of assets and liabilities by the Members of Parliament and Ministers made compulsory.
2. Setting up of a Parliamentary Committee on Ethics as distinct from the Committee of Privileges which would act as a guardian on the activities of members of Parliament.
3. Adoption of a Code of Conduct at the level of political parties to ensure a cleaner public life, e.g., not to give party tickets to persons having criminal record.
4. All political parties should have open audited accounts which must be published annually.
5. Giving more teeth to the Nodal Group set up as a consequence of the recommendations of the Vohra Committee Report.
6. Changes in the legal system, simplification of the procedure and dispensation of quick justice.

Birth of Ethics Committee: General Purposes Committee of Rajya Sabha in 1997 authorized the Chairman, Rajya Sabha to constitute an Ethics Committee with a mandate to oversee the moral and ethical conduct of its members. Thus, the Ethics Committee, Rajya Sabha, the first such Committee by any legislature in India was constituted by the Chairman, Rajya Sabha on 4 March 1997, to oversee the moral and ethical conduct of the Members and to examine the cases referred to it with reference to ethical and other misconduct of Members. It was provided that in all respects of procedure and other matters, the rules applicable to the Committee of Privileges shall apply to the Ethics Committee with such variations and modifications as the Chairman, Rajya Sabha may, from time to time, make.

Ethics Committee, Rajya Sabha consists of ten members, including its Chairman, who are nominated by the Chairman, Rajya Sabha. Chairman of the Committee is from the largest party in the House. Other members normally are the Leaders, Deputy Leaders/Chief Whips of their parties/groups in Rajya Sabha.

By and large the civil service in India has lost its neutral and anonymous character and even though there are still some upright civil servants, they are getting marginalized in the process of governance. The reasons for negative image of bureaucracy in the minds of people in india are:

1. Increasingly, corrupt practices have become prevalent in the higher civil service and public perception of higher civil servants as a class is not edifying.
2. The higher civil servants - particularly, officers of the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, and Indian Forest Service working in different States of the country do not have a fixed tenure in any post and hence are not able to achieve the targets fixed for them in their assignments. In the absence of any fixed tenure, these officers of the All India Services are not able to function as effective instruments of public policy and are simply wasted due to frequent transfers from one post to the other.
3. A majority of civil servants are not perceived as people-friendly and by and large they have lost touch with ground realities. There is a sharp decline in their field visits and inspections of field programmers. Civil servants in the States have almost given up the earlier practice of sustained tours of remote areas and night halts in those areas which are so essential to understand and redress problems of the poor and the weaker sections of the community.

7.0 CHALLENGES

Way back in 200 B.C., Kautilya in his book Arthashastra identified forty different modes of corruption. He also referred to its inevitability and thus remarked: "Just as it is impossible not to taste honey that finds itself at the tip of the tongue, so it is impossible for a government official not to eat up at least a bit of the king's revenue". On the problem of identifying the corrupt official, he observed: "Just as it cannot be found out whether a fish swimming through water drinks or not, so government servants cannot be found out while taking money for themselves".

When A.D. Gorwala presented his report on Public Administration in India in 1951, he had emphasisd that integrity was one of the cardinal philosophical premises of good administration. It is paradoxical that despite visible decline of moral standards in public life, the mainstream reports on administrative reforms have not focused on ethical issues. Except for the Santhanam Committee report on the Prevention of Corruption in India in 1964 and a specific segmented report on the theme, the Railway Corruption Enquiry Committee by Acharya Kriplani in 1955, there have been no major efforts at recommending strategies for integrating moral values with the administrative system at various levels. True, the ARC report on Lok Pal and Lok Ayukta was published in 1966, but that again was confined to structural changes rather than bringing about a new ethical order in public systems.

In 2005, with the announcement of the intention of appointing a second Administrative Reforms Commission by the Manmohan Singh government, ethical concerns of public services are likely to be accorded a respectable place in the emergent inquiry on administrative reforms in the country. The need is to go beyond the general statements of administrative morality and be more meticulous in recommending modifications in laws, rules, structures and behavioural patterns in the specific context of individual departments or organisations. The issues of ethics in the Police Department, for instance, carries a distinctive character and possible solutions than, say, in the Education Department. This would further require a rigorous modification in the laws and procedures pertaining to specific functional areas.

How is the administrative ethics of the twenty-first century likely to be different from that of the twentieth century? The answer is to be found in the increasing convergence of ethical concerns at the cross-national level. Globalisation of the economic order is likely to pave the way for the globalisation of governance issues. Not that there would be universally uniform configurations of the governance systems, much less the bureaucratic systems. But with the mitigation of chasm among nations in the realm of the goals, philosophy and strategies of governance, the ethical concerns are likely to transcend international boundaries.

These will reflect the classical concerns of public administration like efficiency, responsibility, accountability and integrity along with the emergent beliefs in equity, justice, openness, compassion, altruism, responsiveness, human rights and human dignity. Hopefully, this would be instrumental to the blossoming of a new citizenship committed to the sustenance of administrative morality. Even for nurturing such a positive citizenship, public administration institution will have to act as facilitators and educators. That is the biggest challenge as well as an opportunity for the administrative system in the times to come.

8.0 CONCLUSION

Ethics is a comprehensive concept. It comprises of all facets of administration. Emphasis on moral and ethical norms has been an integral part of our tradition. Though vices of corruption, malpractices and bureaupathologies have slowly creeped in our system, the combat measures have not been very effective. Administrative reforms measures have to be holistic enough taking into their purview questions on nature of work ethics, various dimensions of ethics, foci and concerns of ethics and also the nature of obstacles to ethical accountability.

For any governance system to be transparent, accountable, efficient and sensitive, a Code of Ethics in the form of service rules, procedural norms, and administrative strategies the requirement of the day is. It is not possible to bring into force a Code of Ethics if it is self-serving and is subject to constant external interference and manipulation. A certain degree of autonomy is a pre-requisite for any code to be successful. We are witnessing a change in the pattern of authority, obedience and discipline. Moreover, globalisation trends have brought in a kind of universalisation of ethical norms and values. Philosophy of governance has transcended international boundaries. Almost every rung of administration is involved in decision-making. The conflict between individual values, organisational standards and societal norms is clearly visible. Though the code may not reflect a consensus of opinion on ethical issues, it can still provide direction and advice with regard to ethical conduct and assist the administrators in analysing their options and alternatives in the right perspective. 

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