Canis Lupus | The News Minute | August 4, 2014 | 9.20 am ISTIndians – and folks in many other countries – keep moaning about corruption. Politicians “take”, taxmen “take”, judges and babus ditto. Some get caught. A few actually get punished. The resulting disgrace and brouhaha in the media has led to corrupt public servants adopting legal means of “taking”.Legal? And corruption? For a country that invented the zero, this was too easy. Many of our corrupt don’t do corruption the old fashioned way. See a few examples below.Specimen A. (Behold my VIP status, or, Value is a matter of opinion)A very senior officer has a reputation for not taking bribes. But his status is very helpful while shopping. He selects the goods he wants to buy. There is some chit chat. The sahib’s driver lets slip that the sahib is a Very Important Officer in a Very Meddlesome department.“No, no, I don’t take anything for free! I’ll pay the bill; I insist!”Surprise, surprise. The amount payable suddenly has the decimal point jump a digit or two to the left side. (Oh, lucky, lucky you Sir. These are damaged goods you selected. Our practiced eye can spot the defect even if nobody else can’t”).Specimen B (Sez who these are dud shares!? Or, once again, Value is a matter of opinion)The Corrupt Person (CP) has a close relation who suddenly discovers he has business acumen. He hitherto used to loaf around the local Girls’ College gates most of the time, when he wasn’t being carried home from the pubs. But then his fond relative, the CP aforementioned, got elected…The new businessman floats a Limited Company with an impressive name, a logo, a board of management. But hardly much else. People flock to buy the shares of this company at hefty premiums. They claim this company has a great future. Why, they’re actually buying them for a song; just watch! Strange coincidence, all the folks snapping up these shares (or their relations) have business coming their way from the departments under the Minister’s charge, the good old fond relative. Even if you are buying a share for Rs. 10 lakh for which nobody in his senses would pay one buck, legally, nobody can say you’ve done something wrong. You assessed the risk and “thought” it was worthwhile.Specimen C (Sleeping Partner)Like in Specimen B, here too you need a trusted close relation. Fortunately, the extended Indian family has no dearth of these. The concerned CP may be having powers of life and death over several businesses dealing with his department. Said relations quietly become sleeping partners in these firms. They may even be paid huge salaries (for playing spider solitaire on the office computer). These businesses find official harassment and obstruction has gone down ever since they enlisted the services of their Lucky Charm. Some people have favourable planetary conjunctions on their birth star, you see, and there’s no harm in trying to get some of their luck rub off on your business. Specimen D (SUV? What SUV? I only own an Alto!)The CP’s returns show he owns a modest (though robust) little car. RTI all you want, even the motor vehicles registries shows that’s all the cars he, or his wife or children, own. That doesn’t explain why he is only seen in an expensive SUV which keeps changing model and colour every season. Turns out these vehicles were merely lent to him (or hired by him for ten paisa a kilometre) from a sympathetic car owner, whose mother’s brother’s brother-in-law just happens to have a big business which just happens to have the CP’s thumb on its jugular.Specimen E (Damn fools, can’t see the diff between a bribe and a loan)The CP suddenly comes into a lot of money. “Bribes” scream his enemies. That’s until when he shows a friendly media-person his loan documents. Everything is properly drafted, executed and witnessed. Small hitch, though. The loan never does get repaid. “That’s wrong,” you say. But then, many bona fide borrowers default on their payments. So what’s so remarkable if CP is defaulting too? And the lender isn’t too worried about his repayment, so what’s tickling your – er – whatever. Everyone quietens down after this. Not a paisa is repaid, nobody asks for a repayment. Then, after some years, the law of limitations kicks in.A similar caper is pulled off with the financed car. CP makes the down payment on the nice car, executes the finance documents of 78 pages, and drives the car home. Then he gets rather tardy with his instalments. Busy, busy, busy, you know. Important Matters always bothering his poor head. How do you expect CP to remember petty things like paying EMIs to some financier? After a couple of years the car is looking somewhat battered and out of date. The financer quietly repossesses the car. Time for another car financer to continue with the replay.Since I live in a quieter part of India, these are about all the legal means of corruption I know of. To be sure, there are some more dodgy ways, like going to a place where gambling is legal and the briber mysteriously losing huge amounts to the bribee. However, I’ve stuck to the ones where a platoon of lawyers can’t harm CP even if he was unethical. And I’ve yet to hear of anyone going to jail because his ethics weren’t good enough. There’s a fine line between transgressing ethics and transgressing laws. Keep on the right side of that line and CP is safe.There are bound to be people in places like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore who would be better informed about other legal ways to keep the Great Indian Corruption Machine running nicely. They too should put down their info in the media, whether it be Social or Unsocial. A good database is always useful, if not for the chor, then at least for the sipahi.Canis Lupus is a resident of Himchal PradeshThe opinions expressed in this articles are the personal opinions of the author. The News Minute is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability or validity of any information in this article. The information, facts or opinions appearing in this article do not reflect the views of The News Minute and The News Minute does not assume any liability on the same.