Santosh Hegde, former Lokayukta, while expressing grave concern over the fall in the values, exhorted the youths to inculcate at least two values – contentment and humanism – in their life.
He was delivering a lecture on ‘fall in values and consequences thereof’ organised by the Sandur Residential School, to commemorate its diamond jubilee celebrations here on Saturday.
“We have been seeing fall in the values in all the four pillars of the democracy — political, judiciary, bureaucracy and the media — mainly because greed was increasing, which is very unfortunate,” he regretted.
Citing instances of the fall in values in politics, Mr. Hegde took strong exception to the elected representatives stalling proceedings in Parliament and State Assemblies without realising the importance of their role and commitment to work for the welfare of the people.
“When the UPA government introduced Goods and Service Tax (GST) Bill, the NDA, which was in opposition, opposed it. Later, when the NDA, after coming to power, introduced the GST bill, the UPA opposed it. Houses are adjourned, proceedings are being stalled, Bills are passed without any discussions while an expenditure of ₹ 10 crore per day is being incurred by the government,” he pointed out.
He also expressed his concern over the functioning of the judiciary in recent days and criticised some of the Supreme Court judges holding press conference and asked: “What had they achieved ? This is not a solution to the problem. Judiciary can survive only when it earns respect from the people.”
Speaking of the fall in values in bureaucracy, Mr. Hegde said that it was mainly due to rampant corruption during appointment. “How can the bureaucrats, who get appointed by paying bribes, do justice to the needy. At least one or two bureaucrats are involved in the scams that have surfaced. Over the years, the number of zeros in the scams are adding up,” he said.
Lokayukta Vishwanatha Shetty, also spoke.
