Why No Action Against Monserrate ?
IT raid's Velim Parish Priest, read the headline in the Goan news papers
yesterday, the IT officers went through not only his personal belongings but
asked him about the Church funds as well, even though they know that the Church
funds are well documented and Audited and kept for public viewing at a given
time. All this is acceptable if it is within the rule of law of the ED and
should not be challenged or castigated for their actions. If there is a
complaint then the law should take its course and if even a Priest is found
guilty he should be punished as per the law like any other citizen, as nobody
is or should be above and beyond the law, no matter who.
Having said that the rule of law should be uniform, as a democracy no one is
above the law, but seeing the reports with proof, in the news papers in the
last couple of days, it is hard to digest, why no action has been taken against
the rogue Minister in the Kamat Government namely Babush Monserrate ? It
certainly looks to be the case of elephants being allowed to trash the fields
freely because of their size, while the poor rodent is set traps for its
trespass.
The media is full of the news of the present Education Minister's escapades as
the then TCP minister wherein only the official figure of his illegal income is
reported to be around 26 crores, unofficial could be astronomical and the
monkeys in the IT fail to raid his premises. Even the builders connected with
the illegal funds were raided and surprisingly no action has been taken against
the Minister himself. Is this Minister above the law ? Why should our
politicians get away with corruption ?
The Catholic community is aggrieved by this bias disposition of the IT
Authorities and should by all mean apologize to the Parish Priest of Velim and
the Catholic community at large. If there is a problem there are ways to go
about especially while dealing with sensitive issues, no doubt action should be
taken against erring citizens but discretion certainly can a better part of
valor and as reports suggest that no evidence was recovered against the Parish
Priest so what was all the ruckus about ? Or was there a political inclination
to the whole drama that was staged to discredit the Priest ?
Velim at the moment is politically unstable because of high levels of
corruption, unemployment, the BC class not getting the benefits of BPL schemes,
the fishing jetty issue and the fish processing project that the people of
Velim object too and its common knowledge that the Priest was supporting the
people's causes against the powers that be. In Goa our politicians, because of
their money and political clout tend to get away with anything and everything
and its high time that the people showed them who it is that gives them this
power and for whose benefit they should use that power.
The IT Authorities should answer to the people of Goa for their irresponsible
action against the Catholic Priest of Velim and for their inaction against the
corrupt politicians. It is certainly obvious that the politicians, bureaucrats
and the security services are hand in glove in supporting corruption and
suppressing and harassing Goans at the behest of the powers that be.
I thing only a strong Lokpal Bill could be the answer to the tsunami of
corruption that has engulfed us and as long as we have the same corrupt
politicians in power we will never get the Lokpal Bill that will be worthy of
its cause. Get rid of the present lot of corrupt politicians and elect good
ones that will give us a strong Lokpal Bill.
Freddy Agnelo Fernandes
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