Indian Parliament Passes the Corruption Bill – an Extract from Loony Times

 Feb 23rd, New Delhi : In a move that can change the future course of the nation, the Indian Parliament has passed the corruption bill. There was jubilation all over New Delhi as the political class took to the streets to celebrate this first of its kind legislation.

“This is the first time in the history of democracy that a bill of this magnitude is getting passed,” said Ms.Dancegod, a spokesperson for the ruling Servile Party. “With this legislation in place, politicians and bureaucrats alike can focus on nation building instead of wasting time and energy on negotiating with businessmen.”

Breaking her media silence, Ms.Sofar, the chairperson of URA (United Regressive Alliance) called for a press conference late last evening. “We are proud of this monumental achievement,” she told the media. Going on to highlight the specific advantages of the bill, she elaborated, “Now the facilitation fee a politician or a bureaucrat is entitled to is very clearly outlined in the bill. The facilitation matrix for various roles and for various types and sizes of approvals are clearly laid out. Whether the person is a Minister, a MP, a MLA, an undersecretary, or a clerk, the quantum is very clearly defined. Now there will be no ambiguity and no wasting of time and effort on investigating bribery charges.”

The home minister Mr.Conscioussky made a separate announcement that with the corruption bill in place, CBI can now be disbanded. “This is possible, since the law is retrospective and covers all facilitation fees received in the past 7 years. A skeleton CBI would continue to probe facilitation fees received prior to 2005. The disbanding of CBI would save substantial cost to the exchequer and the savings can be ploughed back into subsidies, ten percent of which has to go back to the political class as facilitation fees according to the new law. As you can see, there is so much trickle effect that this law would generate, which would further drive up the economy, making even more facilitation fee possible. It is an ever increasing virtuous cycle,” he said.

The law was passed with landslide majority in both houses of parliament. This followed a late night consensus brought about after hectic consultation between URA representatives and some of the other party leaders, namely Ms.Magicwoman of BSP (Bhrashtachar Samaj Party) and Mr. Mercytreasure of DMK (Dravida Money Kazhagam). As the readers may recall, both BSP and DMK had opposed the draft, claiming the slabs specified in the bill would considerably bring down the earnings of their leaders. The finance minister had to broker a deal finally and a compromise was reached late in the night that the states were free to impose a surcharge on the facilitation fee over and above what the bill specified. In return, the Servile Party secured their support for provisions for an additional surcharge for leaders of foreign origin. 

Unconfirmed rumors stated that the Prime Minister, Mr.Munmun Sen was opposed to the bill, but was finally prevailed upon by Ms.Sofar. He mumbled uncontrollably when contacted by the media.

The leaders of the opposition, Mr.Roon and Ms.Selfrule trashed the bill as unnecessary. “By fixing slabs for facilitation fees, the government is trying to infringe on the individuals' right to negotiate and fix their own rates. This is a dark day for the ruling class”. The other two prominent leaders of the opposition, Mr.Ladwani and Mr.Noddy were both of the opinion that the ‘violence against minorities’ act and the 'destruction of places of worship' act should have been given higher importance than the corruption bill. However, the members of the ‘Karnataka wing’ of the opposition party were partying late into the night.

The lone dissention from the ruling party was by Sallubhai, who continued to insist that there should be a provision for a separate quota for minorities.

It is rumored that Pakistani Prime Minister Mr.Gilani was in touch with sources in the URA to understand the exact provisions of the bill.

Consequent to the bill being passed, there were rumors that at Raj Ghat, upheavals were felt. Presumably from Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes turning in their urn.