[
{
"no": 1,
"id": "case-1",
"sk": 20130701,
"year": 2013,
"date": "2013 to 2015 (surfaced)",
"cat": "Exam integrity",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Vyapam. The exam-and-jobs racket with a body count",
"stamp": "Deaths unexplained. State shielded.",
"human": {
"v": "Thousands of rigged medical seats and government jobs; 40+ accused and witnesses reportedly dead in suspicious circumstances",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "A decade of poisoned admissions and recruitment in Madhya Pradesh",
"est": true
},
"what": "A vast racket in Madhya Pradesh's professional examinations board rigged medical-college admissions and government recruitment through impersonation and bribery, on an industrial scale.",
"dodge": "As the net widened, an unusually long list of accused and witnesses turned up dead. The state government fought a CBI probe until the High Court forced one in 2015. Not one senior political figure was held to account for a fraud that ran for years under the state's own board, and the deaths were quietly filed away.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Shivraj Singh Chouhan",
"r": "MP Chief Minister (BJP)"
}
],
"pos": "The state said the arrests and the later CBI probe proved the system worked, and denied any cover-up.",
"alleg": "The count and cause of the associated deaths are contested and largely unproven; several were officially recorded as natural causes or accidents.",
"alt": "An independent probe from the first day, real protection for witnesses, and political ownership of a scam that festered for years.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Hindu: SC transfers Vyapam probe to CBI (2015)",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/vyapam-scam-sc-transfers-probe-to-cbi/article7402984.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250714150600/https://www.thehindu.com/news/vyapam-scam-sc-transfers-probe-to-cbi/article7402984.ece"
},
{
"label": "The Hindu: spate of Vyapam-linked deaths (2015)",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Vyapam-scam-spate-of-deaths-raises-disturbing-questions/article60170269.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240712230855/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Vyapam-scam-spate-of-deaths-raises-disturbing-questions/article60170269.ece"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 40
}
},
{
"no": 2,
"id": "case-2",
"sk": 20161108,
"year": 2016,
"date": "08 Nov 2016",
"cat": "Economic shock",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Demonetisation. Savings voided overnight",
"stamp": "No one answered for it",
"human": {
"v": "Cash-wage workers, farmers and traders across the country; 100+ deaths reported in queues and in the distress that followed",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "~₹1.5 to 2 lakh cr est. output loss; 99.3% of the banned notes came back to the RBI",
"est": true
},
"what": "₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, about 86 percent of cash in circulation, were voided with four hours of notice to kill black money, counterfeits and terror funding.",
"timeline": [
{
"sk": 20161108,
"on": "8 Nov 2016",
"kind": "incident",
"what": "₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, about 86 per cent of the cash in circulation, are voided with four hours of notice, to kill black money, counterfeits and terror funding."
},
{
"sk": 20161201,
"on": "Nov to Dec 2016",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "The cash-poor queue for weeks. The stated aim shifts from black money to digitisation once the first claim starts to look unsupportable."
},
{
"sk": 20180829,
"on": "Aug 2018",
"kind": "action",
"what": "The RBI reports that almost all of the voided cash came back, so almost no unaccounted wealth was destroyed."
},
{
"sk": 20180901,
"on": "2018 onward",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "Nobody resigns. No review admits error. The suffering was inflicted on the cash-poor; the reckoning was inflicted on nobody."
}
],
"dodge": "The RBI later reported almost all the cash returned, so almost no unaccounted wealth was destroyed. No one resigned. No review admitted error. The stated aim simply shifted from black money to digitisation once the first claim collapsed. The suffering was inflicted on the cash-poor; the reckoning was inflicted on nobody.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister"
},
{
"n": "Arun Jaitley",
"r": "Finance Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government maintains it widened the tax base and accelerated digital payments.",
"alt": "An honest cost-benefit review against the original goals, and a hunt for black money where it actually sits, in benami property, shell firms and opaque political funding, not in a daily-wager's pocket.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "RBI Annual Report 2017-18: SBNs returned",
"url": "https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/AnnualReportPublications.aspx?Id=1239",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260104101626/https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/AnnualReportPublications.aspx?Id=1239"
},
{
"label": "PIB: text of PM's address, 8 November 2016",
"url": "https://archive.pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=153404",
"tier": 1
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 200000,
"deaths": 100
}
},
{
"no": 3,
"id": "case-3",
"sk": 20170701,
"year": 2017,
"date": "01 Jul 2017",
"cat": "Economic shock",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "GST. Compliance chaos loaded onto the small",
"stamp": "Patched, never owned",
"human": {
"v": "Millions of small firms and traders squeezed by filing burden and blocked cash flow",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Delayed state compensation ran into tens of thousands of crore",
"est": true
},
"what": "A single indirect tax replaced a tangle of central and state levies. A genuine reform, launched with too many slabs, endless rule changes and a portal that buckled.",
"dodge": "The cost of a rushed launch was dumped on small businesses, and the states' promised compensation arrived late and grudgingly. The rules were patched again and again, but the disruption was never once owned as a failure of preparation.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Arun Jaitley",
"r": "Finance Minister and GST Council chair"
}
],
"pos": "The government credits GST with ending tax-on-tax and building one national market.",
"alt": "Fewer slabs, a stable rulebook, a tested IT backbone before launch, a real small-business threshold, and compensation paid on time.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "GST Council 9th meeting minutes: 1 July 2017 rollout",
"url": "https://gstcouncil.gov.in/sites/default/files/Minutes/signed-minutes-9th-gst-council_meeting.pdf",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250821002442/https://www.gstcouncil.gov.in/sites/default/files/Minutes/signed-minutes-9th-gst-council_meeting.pdf"
},
{
"label": "The Hindu: delays in GST compensation to States",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/business/gst-cess-falls-42-short-in-fy20/article32206702.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20220419151325/https://www.thehindu.com/business/gst-cess-falls-42-short-in-fy20/article32206702.ece"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 10000
}
},
{
"no": 4,
"id": "case-4",
"sk": 20180102,
"year": 2018,
"date": "Scheme Jan 2018. Struck down Feb 2024",
"cat": "Fund opacity",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Electoral bonds. The anonymous money machine",
"stamp": "Struck down as unconstitutional",
"human": {
"v": "Every voter, stripped of the right to know who funds power",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "₹12,146 cr encashed in total; the ruling BJP took ~₹6,000 cr+, more than the next six parties combined",
"est": false
},
"what": "A scheme that let donors hand unlimited, publicly anonymous sums to parties through the state-owned SBI, while scrapping the cap on corporate donations.",
"dodge": "Sold as transparency, it delivered secrecy for the public and visibility for whoever controlled the state bank. When the Supreme Court forced disclosure, the numbers confirmed the ruling party as the runaway top beneficiary. The Court struck the scheme down as unconstitutional in 2024. For the years of lopsided, hidden money it enabled, nobody was ever held to account.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Arun Jaitley",
"r": "Finance Minister who introduced it"
}
],
"pos": "The government argued the scheme moved donations into banking channels and protected donor privacy.",
"alleg": "Reporting and the opposition alleged patterns linking bond purchases to contracts and to the timing of agency raids on donors. These are contested allegations; the Court ruled on constitutionality, not on any specific quid pro quo.",
"alt": "Full public disclosure of every donor, a firm corporate cap, a bar on shell and loss-making donors, and a move to capped small-donor or state funding.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "BJP got more than next 6 combined",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/elections/lok-sabha-election/electoral-bonds-bjp-received-more-funds-than-the-next-6-parties-combined-124031500434_1.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240525212448/https://www.business-standard.com/elections/lok-sabha-election/electoral-bonds-bjp-received-more-funds-than-the-next-6-parties-combined-124031500434_1.html"
},
{
"label": "Top donors and beneficiaries",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/elections/lok-sabha-election/electoral-bonds-data-here-s-a-list-of-the-biggest-donors-and-beneficiaries-124032200461_1.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250211123857/https://www.business-standard.com/elections/lok-sabha-election/electoral-bonds-data-here-s-a-list-of-the-biggest-donors-and-beneficiaries-124032200461_1.html"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 12146
}
},
{
"no": 5,
"id": "case-5",
"sk": 20180201,
"year": 2018,
"date": "Deal 2016. Row 2018 to 2019",
"cat": "Crony capital (alleged)",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Rafale. The pricing and offset row",
"stamp": "Alleged. Courts declined a probe.",
"human": {
"v": "No direct death toll. The stake is public trust in defence spending.",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Opposition alleged a far higher per-jet price than the earlier negotiation (contested)",
"est": true
},
"what": "India agreed to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France in a government-to-government deal, dropping an earlier plan to buy more jets with local manufacture.",
"dodge": "When the opposition alleged the per-jet price was inflated and questioned an offset contract routed to a newly formed private firm, the government withheld the pricing on security grounds and refused a Joint Parliamentary Committee. The absence of any independent scrutiny, not a proven crime, is the accountability gap.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister"
},
{
"n": "Nirmala Sitharaman",
"r": "Defence Minister from 2017"
}
],
"pos": "The government denied any irregularity; the Supreme Court declined to order an investigation and dismissed review petitions.",
"alleg": "The price and offset claims are opposition allegations the courts did not uphold. No wrongdoing was established; the criticism is of secrecy and the refusal of a JPC.",
"alt": "An independent audit trail and parliamentary oversight of pricing on mega defence deals, protecting real secrets without shielding the whole deal from scrutiny.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "SC judgment, Manohar Lal Sharma v Modi (Dec 2018)",
"url": "https://indiankanoon.org/doc/95183857/",
"tier": 1
},
{
"label": "PRS summary, CAG Report No. 3 of 2019 (Rafale)",
"url": "https://prsindia.org/policy/report-summaries/capital-acquisition-indian-air-force",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 6,
"id": "case-6",
"sk": 20190214,
"year": 2019,
"date": "14 Feb 2019",
"cat": "National security",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Pulwama. 40 troopers dead, the questions buried",
"stamp": "No public inquiry",
"human": {
"v": "40 CRPF personnel killed when a suicide bomber rammed their convoy",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A catastrophic intelligence and security failure on a known-sensitive highway",
"est": true
},
"what": "A vehicle packed with explosives struck a CRPF convoy in Pulwama, Kashmir, killing 40 personnel in the deadliest attack on Indian forces in the region in decades.",
"dodge": "No findings on the security lapse were ever made public. The then Governor of J&K, Satya Pal Malik, later stated openly that there had been grave lapses, including a denied request to airlift the convoy, and said he was told at the highest level to keep quiet because the blame would be placed on Pakistan. Those claims were never independently examined. Forty dead troopers got a war of rhetoric, not an inquiry.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Rajnath Singh",
"r": "Defence Minister"
},
{
"n": "Amit Shah / Rajnath Singh",
"r": "Home Ministry (CRPF)"
}
],
"pos": "The government treated it as terrorism and answered with the Balakot airstrikes; it did not act on Malik's later claims.",
"alleg": "The lapse claims are those of former Governor Satya Pal Malik and remain unexamined by any public inquiry.",
"alt": "An independent, published inquiry into the intelligence and logistics failure. The least owed to 40 dead men and their families.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Wire: Satya Pal Malik's Pulwama claims (2023)",
"url": "https://thewire.in/politics/satya-pal-malik-full-interview-pulwama-modi",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260630205137/https://thewire.in/politics/satya-pal-malik-full-interview-pulwama-modi"
},
{
"label": "Indian Express: Pulwama convoy movement, Feb 2019",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pulwama-attack-crpf-constable-convoy-ghastly-sight-scream-bus-disappeared-kashmir-car-bomb-5586642/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230605223053/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pulwama-attack-crpf-constable-convoy-ghastly-sight-scream-bus-disappeared-kashmir-car-bomb-5586642/"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 40
}
},
{
"no": 7,
"id": "case-7",
"sk": 20200325,
"year": 2020,
"date": "25 Mar 2020 onward",
"cat": "Data denial",
"sev": "red",
"title": "The lockdown migrant exodus. 'No data' on the dead",
"stamp": "Denied. Uncounted. Unpaid.",
"human": {
"v": "10 million+ displaced; hundreds to 1,000+ estimated deaths on roads and rails; tens of millions of jobs lost",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Not a rupee in compensation, because the state said it had no data on which to base any",
"est": false
},
"what": "A nationwide lockdown announced with four hours of notice stranded migrant workers with no transport, no work and no income, forcing millions to walk home. Many died of exhaustion, accidents and hunger.",
"dodge": "Asked in Parliament how many migrants died and what compensation was owed, the Labour Ministry answered that no such data was maintained, so the question of compensation did not arise. Refusing to count the dead became the very device for owing nothing to the living. It is hard to imagine a colder abdication.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Santosh Gangwar",
"r": "Labour and Employment Minister"
},
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister who announced the lockdown"
}
],
"pos": "The government said it provided food, ration and Shramik trains to ease migrants' hardship.",
"alt": "Count every death, publish the toll, compensate the families. Build in humane transition time before shutting a nation down.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "'No data', so no compensation",
"url": "https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/no-data-migrant-worker-deaths-says-govt-some-news-reports-they-should-read-133096",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230704225629/https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/no-data-migrant-worker-deaths-says-govt-some-news-reports-they-should-read-133096"
},
{
"label": "Centre tells Parliament",
"url": "https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/economy-politics/story/migrant-deaths-no-data-available-so-no-compensation-centre-informs-parliament-273047-2020-09-15",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260727133151/https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/economy-politics/story/migrant-deaths-no-data-available-so-no-compensation-centre-informs-parliament-273047-2020-09-15"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 1000
}
},
{
"no": 8,
"id": "case-8",
"sk": 20200328,
"year": 2020,
"date": "28 Mar 2020 onward",
"cat": "Fund opacity",
"sev": "red",
"title": "PM CARES. A public fund that hides from the public",
"stamp": "No RTI. No CAG audit.",
"human": {
"v": "Every taxpayer and donor with a stake in how relief money is spent",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Thousands of crore in donations, including from state-owned firms; donors and spending undisclosed",
"est": true
},
"what": "A trust set up days into the pandemic to collect COVID-relief donations, using the Prime Minister's name, the national emblem and a gov.in domain.",
"dodge": "For all the trappings of the state, the government insists PM CARES is a private trust, so it is not a public authority under RTI and is not audited by the CAG. No citizen can learn who gave, or where the money went. A fund that borrows the state's face while dodging the state's accountability is opacity by design.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Ex-officio Chairman"
},
{
"n": "Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman",
"r": "Ex-officio Trustees"
}
],
"pos": "The government says the fund is independently audited and its expenditure summaries are published.",
"alt": "Bring it under RTI and CAG audit and disclose donors and disbursements, the standard for any fund that trades on the nation's name and symbols.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Centre: not a public authority",
"url": "https://scroll.in/latest/1006011/pm-cares-is-not-a-public-authority-under-the-rti-act-centre-tells-delhi-high-court",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260114085055/https://scroll.in/latest/1006011/pm-cares-is-not-a-public-authority-under-the-rti-act-centre-tells-delhi-high-court"
},
{
"label": "On gov.in, still 'not public'",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/pm-cares-now-under-govin-domain-centre-still-says-it-is-not-public-authority-932943.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240423050844/https://www.deccanherald.com/india/pm-cares-now-under-govin-domain-centre-still-says-it-is-not-public-authority-932943.html"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 1000
}
},
{
"no": 9,
"id": "case-9",
"sk": 20200615,
"year": 2020,
"date": "15 Jun 2020",
"cat": "National security",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Galwan. 20 soldiers dead, and 'no one entered'",
"stamp": "Incursion publicly denied",
"human": {
"v": "20 Indian soldiers killed, 70+ injured, the first LAC combat deaths in 45 years",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Reported loss of patrolling access at several points along the Ladakh LAC",
"est": true
},
"what": "Indian and Chinese troops fought hand to hand in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the deadliest border clash with China since 1962.",
"dodge": "Days later, the Prime Minister told an all-party meeting that nobody had entered Indian territory and no post had been captured. Critics said it handed Beijing a propaganda gift and contradicted his own government's earlier account. If no one intruded, they asked, where did 20 soldiers die? No accountability followed for the intelligence failure or the lost ground.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister"
},
{
"n": "Rajnath Singh",
"r": "Defence Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The PMO said the remark referred to the situation after the army repelled the transgression, and pointed to disengagement talks.",
"alt": "A straight account to Parliament of what territory was lost and why, an intelligence-failure review, and honesty owed to the dead.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Modi denies incursion (Al Jazeera)",
"url": "https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/19/modi-denies-chinese-incursion-into-india-before-deadly-clash",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260123050947/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/19/modi-denies-chinese-incursion-into-india-before-deadly-clash"
},
{
"label": "How territory was lost (Caravan)",
"url": "https://caravanmagazine.in/security/india-china-ladakh",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260515140316/https://caravanmagazine.in/security/india-china-ladakh"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 20
}
},
{
"no": 10,
"id": "case-10",
"sk": 20200528,
"year": 2020,
"date": "Approved 2020. New House opened May 2023",
"cat": "Economic shock",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Central Vista. A vanity rebuild in a plague year",
"stamp": "Priorities never justified",
"human": {
"v": "A pandemic-era spend while oxygen and vaccines ran short",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "~₹20,000 cr redevelopment, including a new Parliament (~₹970 cr)",
"est": true
},
"what": "The government pressed ahead with a sweeping redevelopment of the capital's central avenue and a new Parliament building through the pandemic, declaring it an essential project.",
"dodge": "As citizens queued for oxygen and hospitals ran dry, thousands of crore went into remaking the seat of power, with the heritage and cost concerns brushed aside and the courts asked to treat it as untouchable. The priorities were never honestly defended to a grieving public.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Hardeep Singh Puri",
"r": "Housing and Urban Affairs Minister"
},
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government said the old buildings were unfit and outdated and the project would save money over time.",
"alt": "Sequence the spending behind the emergency, publish the full cost and rationale, and let heritage and Parliament oversight run their course.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Govt Central Vista site: project cost breakdown",
"url": "https://centralvista.gov.in/myths-and-realities.php",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260513012137/https://centralvista.gov.in/myths-and-realities.php"
},
{
"label": "Scroll.in: Central Vista work during Covid lockdown",
"url": "https://scroll.in/article/993385/as-covid-19-devastates-delhi-central-vista-project-declared-an-essential-service-work-continues",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260503092754/https://scroll.in/article/993385/as-covid-19-devastates-delhi-central-vista-project-declared-an-essential-service-work-continues"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 20000
}
},
{
"no": 11,
"id": "case-11",
"sk": 20200927,
"year": 2020,
"date": "Sep 2020. Repealed Nov 2021",
"cat": "Policy misfire",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Farm laws. Rammed through, then repealed",
"stamp": "Reversed after a year of protest",
"human": {
"v": "~700 protesting farmers reported dead over the year-long agitation",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "A year of blockades and lost trade; the dead long unacknowledged",
"est": true
},
"what": "Three laws to deregulate farm markets were passed by a contested voice vote amid uproar, with no real consultation of the states (agriculture is largely a state subject) or of farmers.",
"dodge": "Farmers protested for a year over fears for assured procurement, and hundreds died at the protest sites. The government finally repealed all three laws, then framed the retreat as a failure to explain the reform, never as an error of substance or process, and was slow even to acknowledge the dead.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Narendra Singh Tomar",
"r": "Agriculture Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government said the laws would have let farmers sell anywhere and drawn in investment.",
"alleg": "Farm unions alleged the laws favoured large agri-corporates, a contested political allegation; the repeal followed the protests, not any adjudicated finding.",
"alt": "Legislate farm reform with the states and farmers at the table, put MSP on firmer footing, and pilot changes that can be tested and trusted.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Farm Laws Repeal Bill 2021, full text (PRS)",
"url": "https://prsindia.org/files/bills_acts/bills_parliament/2021/Farm%20Laws%20Repeal%20Bill,2021.pdf",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20231212155123/https://prsindia.org/files/bills_acts/bills_parliament/2021/Farm%20Laws%20Repeal%20Bill,2021.pdf"
},
{
"label": "Govt: no record of protest deaths; SKM says 670+",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/record-farmers-death-protest-compensation-parliament-7650247/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230530013712/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/record-farmers-death-protest-compensation-parliament-7650247/"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 700
}
},
{
"no": 12,
"id": "case-12",
"sk": 20200928,
"year": 2020,
"date": "Sep 2020",
"cat": "Policy misfire",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Labour codes. Worker protections gutted in silence",
"stamp": "Passed amid opposition boycott",
"human": {
"v": "A rising share of the workforce pushed into insecure, easily-terminated contracts",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Weakened job security and collective bargaining for millions",
"est": true
},
"what": "Twenty-nine labour laws were folded into four codes, raising the threshold for firing workers without permission, expanding fixed-term contracts and tightening the rules for legal strikes.",
"dodge": "The codes were passed while much of the opposition was absent or suspended, with almost no debate on provisions that hand bargaining power decisively to employers, and then left in years of limbo through stalled implementation.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Santosh Gangwar / Bhupender Yadav",
"r": "Labour Ministers"
}
],
"pos": "The government says the codes simplify compliance, ease business and formalise jobs.",
"alt": "Match any hiring flexibility with portable social security and real unemployment support, agreed through genuine tripartite consultation.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "PRS: overview of the four labour codes",
"url": "https://prsindia.org/billtrack/overview-of-labour-law-reforms",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260721160252/https://prsindia.org/billtrack/overview-of-labour-law-reforms"
},
{
"label": "Trade unions call labour codes anti-worker",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/labour-codes-anti-worker-say-trade-unions/article61723537.ece",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 13,
"id": "case-13",
"sk": 20210501,
"year": 2021,
"date": "Apr to Jul 2021",
"cat": "Public safety",
"sev": "red",
"title": "COVID second wave. The denial of the oxygen dead",
"stamp": "Deaths denied and undercounted",
"human": {
"v": "3.4 to 4.7 million excess deaths estimated (WHO) against ~0.5 million official, and zero oxygen deaths admitted",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Families left uncompensated for deaths the state refused to record",
"est": false
},
"what": "As the Delta wave overran hospitals, patients died gasping in acute oxygen shortages while families begged for cylinders in the street.",
"dodge": "The government told Parliament that no deaths due to lack of oxygen had been specifically reported by any state, a claim contradicted by hospitals, courts and the media. A parliamentary committee rebuked the ministry for its denial. When the WHO put India's real toll at up to ten times the official count, the government attacked the methodology rather than face the gap. The dead were disowned twice: once in the wards, once in the record.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Harsh Vardhan / Mansukh Mandaviya",
"r": "Health Ministers (2021)"
},
{
"n": "Bharati Pravin Pawar",
"r": "MoS Health who made the statement"
}
],
"pos": "The government said health is a state subject, that states had not reported oxygen-specific deaths, and it disputed the WHO estimate.",
"alt": "Audit the oxygen deaths, publish an honest excess-mortality count, and compensate the families, exactly as the parliamentary committee recommended.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "'No oxygen deaths' outrage (BBC)",
"url": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57911638",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Panel: audit the deaths",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/covid-19-parliamentary-panel-recommends-audit-of-deaths-due-to-oxygen-shortage-1144652.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260606202959/https://www.deccanherald.com/india/covid-19-parliamentary-panel-recommends-audit-of-deaths-due-to-oxygen-shortage-1144652.html"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 4700000
}
},
{
"no": 14,
"id": "case-14",
"sk": 20210705,
"year": 2021,
"date": "05 Jul 2021",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Stan Swamy. An 84-year-old dies an undertrial",
"stamp": "Custodial death. Bail refused to the end.",
"human": {
"v": "An 84-year-old priest and tribal-rights activist, dead in custody, never tried, never convicted",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A chilling message to every ageing or ailing activist facing the UAPA",
"est": true
},
"what": "Father Stan Swamy, jailed in the Bhima Koregaon case under the anti-terror UAPA, was denied bail and, at first, even a straw and sipper cup to drink with, and died in custody as an undertrial.",
"dodge": "The state opposed his bail even as his body gave out. No one answered for the death of an octogenarian held for months without trial under a law whose bail bar is almost impossible to clear. This was punishment by process, with the process itself as the sentence.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Amit Shah",
"r": "Home Minister (NIA)"
}
],
"pos": "Agencies maintained the case was a grave national-security matter that followed due legal process.",
"alt": "Humane bail for the old and the sick, a workable UAPA bail standard, and accountability for deaths of undertrials in state custody.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Stan Swamy dies awaiting medical bail, July 2021",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/stan-swamy-dead-elgar-parishad-case-7389891/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260311070110/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/stan-swamy-dead-elgar-parishad-case-7389891/"
},
{
"label": "SC bail judgment, Bhima Koregaon, 28 July 2023",
"url": "https://indiankanoon.org/doc/97883907/",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251104232344/https://indiankanoon.org/doc/97883907/"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 1
}
},
{
"no": 15,
"id": "case-15",
"sk": 20210718,
"year": 2021,
"date": "18 Jul 2021",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Pegasus. Spyware, and a refusal to answer",
"stamp": "Neither confirmed nor denied",
"human": {
"v": "Journalists, activists, opposition figures and officials on the alleged target list",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Not quantified. The damage is to a free press and a fair opposition.",
"est": false
},
"what": "A global investigation reported that military-grade Pegasus spyware may have targeted the phones of Indian journalists, activists and opposition politicians.",
"dodge": "Rather than say plainly whether the state had bought or used the spyware, the government neither confirmed nor denied it, and then withheld cooperation from the Supreme Court's own technical committee, which reported it could not get the government to engage. A clean denial was never offered. The question was simply left to rot.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Union Home and IT Ministries",
"r": "Oversight of surveillance"
}
],
"pos": "The government dismissed the reporting as an attempt to malign Indian democracy and cited national security.",
"alleg": "Whether the government itself deployed Pegasus remains unconfirmed; the SC panel found malware on some devices but could not conclusively attribute it, partly because of non-cooperation.",
"alt": "Answer under oath, place surveillance under judicial and parliamentary oversight, and legislate warrants and review.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "SC order constituting Pegasus committee, Oct 2021",
"url": "https://indiankanoon.org/doc/39021018/",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260718065416/https://indiankanoon.org/doc/39021018/"
},
{
"label": "Pegasus Project findings, The Wire, July 2021",
"url": "https://thewire.in/government/project-pegasus-journalists-ministers-activists-phones-spying",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260712080842/https://thewire.in/government/project-pegasus-journalists-ministers-activists-phones-spying"
}
]
},
{
"no": 16,
"id": "case-16",
"sk": 20190805,
"year": 2019,
"date": "Aug 2019 onward",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Internet shutdowns. Democracy switched off",
"stamp": "World leader in blackouts",
"human": {
"v": "Millions cut off from information, income and help during shutdowns; Kashmir endured one of the world's longest",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Billions of dollars in estimated economic losses over the years",
"est": true
},
"what": "India has repeatedly imposed more internet shutdowns than any other country, from the record-length blackout in Jammu and Kashmir after 2019 to routine shutdowns during protests and exams.",
"dodge": "The blackouts are ordered with little transparency and no independent test of necessity, cutting citizens off from banking, medicine, schooling and news, and the human and economic cost is never accounted for or owned.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Union Home Ministry / state governments",
"r": "Order the shutdowns"
}
],
"pos": "Authorities cite law and order and the prevention of rumour and violence.",
"alt": "Narrow, time-bound, judicially reviewable shutdowns as a genuine last resort, with published justification and cost.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Access Now #KeepItOn: India leads shutdowns 2023",
"url": "https://www.accessnow.org/press-release/india-keepiton-internet-shutdowns-2023-en/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260727040524/https://www.accessnow.org/press-release/india-keepiton-internet-shutdowns-2023-en/"
},
{
"label": "Timeline of the J&K internet shutdown, 2019-2021",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/jk-4g-internet-mobile-timeline-7176408/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260502225658/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/jk-4g-internet-mobile-timeline-7176408/"
}
]
},
{
"no": 17,
"id": "case-17",
"sk": 20200224,
"year": 2020,
"date": "Feb 2020",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Delhi riots. The dead, and the selective dock",
"stamp": "Instigators free, dissenters jailed",
"human": {
"v": "~53 killed, most of them Muslim; hundreds injured, thousands displaced",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Homes, shops and mosques gutted across north-east Delhi",
"est": true
},
"what": "Communal violence tore through north-east Delhi over several days in February 2020, killing around 53 people, the majority of them Muslim.",
"dodge": "Rights groups documented police inaction and, in places, complicity, while the state built a sweeping conspiracy case that jailed students and activists under the UAPA for years without trial. Several figures who had made openly inflammatory speeches faced no such action. The prosecution's aim looked less like justice than a message.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Amit Shah",
"r": "Home Minister (Delhi Police)"
}
],
"pos": "Police deny bias and say the investigation followed the evidence of an organised conspiracy.",
"alleg": "The claims of police complicity and one-sided prosecution are contested, advanced by rights groups and the accused and denied by the police; several cases remain in court.",
"alt": "An independent inquiry into the policing, bail and fair trials for undertrials, and even-handed prosecution of incitement whoever spoke it.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Amnesty International briefing on Delhi riots, 2020",
"url": "https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Investigative-Briefing.pdf",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260304141221/https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Investigative-Briefing.pdf"
},
{
"label": "Delhi HC bail order in UAPA conspiracy case, 2021",
"url": "https://indiankanoon.org/doc/73074664/",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20231104181534/https://indiankanoon.org/doc/73074664/"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 53
}
},
{
"no": 18,
"id": "case-18",
"sk": 20200929,
"year": 2020,
"date": "29 Sep 2020",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Hathras. A victim, and a cremation at 2am",
"stamp": "No senior official answered",
"human": {
"v": "A young Dalit woman dead after an alleged gang rape; her body burned without the family's consent",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A community's trust in the state, set alight in the dark",
"est": true
},
"what": "A 19-year-old Dalit woman died after an alleged gang rape in Hathras, UP. Police cremated her body in the dead of night, without her family present or willing, and officials at first disputed that a rape had occurred.",
"dodge": "A forced night cremation and an official denial are the marks of a cover-up, not a reckoning. Journalists heading to report the case were arrested. No senior figure in the state government answered for any of it.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Yogi Adityanath",
"r": "UP Chief Minister (BJP)"
}
],
"pos": "The state said the cremation respected the family's wishes and law-and-order needs, and ordered a probe.",
"alt": "Dignity and consent for the family, an independent investigation, and consequences for officials who burned a body in secret.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Hindu, Hathras cremation and SIT investigation",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/up-police-forcibly-cremating-hathras-rape-victim-at-night-allege-kin/article61700743.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250809202736/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/up-police-forcibly-cremating-hathras-rape-victim-at-night-allege-kin/article61700743.ece"
},
{
"label": "The Hindu, Supreme Court bail for Siddique Kappan",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/supreme-court-grants-bail-to-kerala-journalist-siddique-kappan/article65869975.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260312010935/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/supreme-court-grants-bail-to-kerala-journalist-siddique-kappan/article65869975.ece"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 1
}
},
{
"no": 19,
"id": "case-19",
"sk": 20211003,
"year": 2021,
"date": "03 Oct 2021",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Lakhimpur Kheri. A minister's son, farmers dead, no sacking",
"stamp": "Minister kept post and re-nominated",
"human": {
"v": "8 killed, four of them farmers, one a journalist, and in the reprisal two BJP workers and a driver",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A Union minister's family accused of running down protesters, with no political consequence",
"est": true
},
"what": "An SUV ploughed into farmers protesting the farm laws in Lakhimpur Kheri, UP. The vehicle was tied to the convoy of the family of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni, and his son Ashish Mishra was named prime accused.",
"dodge": "With an FIR naming the minister's son, the Prime Minister still did not ask Ajay Mishra to go, and he stayed on in the Home Ministry, only to be re-nominated by the BJP for the 2024 election. It took the Supreme Court to get the accused arrested and his bail cancelled. Power closed ranks around its own.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ajay Mishra Teni",
"r": "MoS Home, not sacked"
},
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister who declined to act"
}
],
"pos": "The minister and his son denied the son was present; the case is before the courts.",
"alleg": "Ashish Mishra's role is before the courts. The accountability failure is that the minister paid no political price while the case ran.",
"alt": "Step a minister aside pending a credible probe when his family is accused of killing protesters. That is the floor of ministerial responsibility.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "SIT chargesheets minister's son",
"url": "https://www.india.com/news/india/lakhimpur-kheri-violence-case-sit-files-5000-page-chargesheet-against-ministers-son-ashish-mishra-ajay-kumar-mishra-teni-anti-farm-law-protest-5168097/",
"tier": 3
},
{
"label": "Demand for Teni's dismissal",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/india%2Ffarmers-workers-to-mark-black-day-on-tuesday-to-seek-ajay-mishra-tenis-dismissal-over-lakhimpur-kheri-killings-2709235",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240217230002/https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/india/farmers-workers-to-mark-black-day-on-tuesday-to-seek-ajay-mishra-tenis-dismissal-over-lakhimpur-kheri-killings-2709235"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 8
}
},
{
"no": 20,
"id": "case-20",
"sk": 20210901,
"year": 2021,
"date": "2021 onward",
"cat": "Data denial",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "The missing Census and the suppressed data",
"stamp": "Unresolved. Data withheld.",
"human": {
"v": "1.4 billion citizens governed on a 2011 population base; welfare rolls frozen on stale numbers",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Crores potentially cut out of entitlements pegged to outdated data",
"est": true
},
"what": "The decennial Census, due in 2021, was postponed for years, the first such delay in 150 years, even as awkward datasets on jobs and consumption were delayed or held back.",
"dodge": "Governing without current numbers is itself a way of dodging accountability, because it hides how many are poor, jobless or excluded. When surveys threw up inconvenient findings, they were buried or rubbished rather than released, so the government could never be measured against its own claims.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Amit Shah",
"r": "Home Minister (Census / RGI)"
},
{
"n": "Union Statistics Ministry",
"r": "Official data"
}
],
"pos": "The government cited the pandemic and administrative reasons for the delay.",
"alt": "Run the Census, release datasets on a fixed public calendar, and wall the statistical system off from political convenience.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "BBC, Census delayed six years, now due 2027",
"url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm26pz5zlmlo",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260529063725/https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm26pz5zlmlo"
},
{
"label": "The Hindu, 2017-18 consumption survey withheld",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/government-puts-household-spending-report-on-hold/article61611660.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251027050350/https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/government-puts-household-spending-report-on-hold/article61611660.ece"
}
]
},
{
"no": 21,
"id": "case-21",
"sk": 20220614,
"year": 2022,
"date": "14 Jun 2022",
"cat": "Policy misfire",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Agnipath. Recruitment overhaul over youth objections",
"stamp": "Pushed through amid protests",
"human": {
"v": "Lakhs of aspirants affected; only ~25% of 'Agniveers' to be kept on after four years",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Public property torched in nationwide protests; trains burned",
"est": true
},
"what": "A scheme that replaced permanent military recruitment with four-year 'Agniveer' contracts, most of whom leave with no pension.",
"dodge": "Announced with no real consultation and forced through despite violent protests, the core grievances of job security and veteran status were met with cosmetic tweaks, not a rethink or a pause to build consent.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Rajnath Singh",
"r": "Defence Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government says Agnipath builds a younger force and gives youth skills and a stipend.",
"alt": "Consult veterans and aspirants, pilot before a national rollout, and confront pension and post-service security head-on.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "PMO, Cabinet clears AGNIPATH scheme, 14 June 2022",
"url": "https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/in-a-transformative-reform-cabinet-clears-agnipath-scheme-for-recruitment-of-youth-in-the-armed-forces/",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20220629092605/https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/in-a-transformative-reform-cabinet-clears-agnipath-scheme-for-recruitment-of-youth-in-the-armed-forces/"
},
{
"label": "The Hindu, anti-Agnipath protests in Bihar",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/anti-agnipath-stir-flares-up-in-bihar-several-trains-vehicles-set-on-fire/article65536796.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20221015221309/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/anti-agnipath-stir-flares-up-in-bihar-several-trains-vehicles-set-on-fire/article65536796.ece"
}
]
},
{
"no": 22,
"id": "case-22",
"sk": 20220727,
"year": 2022,
"date": "2022 onward",
"cat": "Democratic institutions",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "The ED as a political weapon (alleged)",
"stamp": "Alleged misuse. Bail near impossible.",
"human": {
"v": "Opposition leaders arrested and jailed for long spells before any conviction",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "A watchdog widely accused of working to a political calendar",
"est": true
},
"what": "The Enforcement Directorate's powers under the money-laundering law were widened and, after a 2022 Supreme Court ruling, hardened, with a near-impossible bail bar and sweeping arrest and attachment powers.",
"dodge": "Reporting and opposition tallies point to the overwhelming share of high-profile cases falling on opposition figures, often clustering around elections, while conviction rates stay strikingly low. Arrests and asset freezes land long before, and often without, any conviction, so the process itself becomes the punishment and the deterrent.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Union Finance Ministry / Home Ministry",
"r": "Oversight of the agencies"
}
],
"pos": "The government insists the agencies act only on evidence and that courts have upheld the law.",
"alleg": "The claim of election-timed, opposition-targeted misuse is a contested allegation from the opposition and some reporting; courts have upheld parts of the regime while flagging concerns in specific cases.",
"alt": "Restore proportionate bail, require prior judicial sign-off for arrest and attachment, publish case data, and put an independent check on the agency.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Supreme Court, Vijay Madanlal Choudhary (2022)",
"url": "https://indiankanoon.org/doc/14485072/",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260409045334/https://indiankanoon.org/doc/14485072/"
},
{
"label": "Indian Express count of ED cases by party, 2014-22",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/since-2014-4-fold-jump-in-ed-cases-against-politicians-95-per-cent-are-from-opposition-8163060/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260402222258/https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/since-2014-4-fold-jump-in-ed-cases-against-politicians-95-per-cent-are-from-opposition-8163060/"
}
]
},
{
"no": 23,
"id": "case-23",
"sk": 20220815,
"year": 2022,
"date": "15 Aug 2022. SC quashed Jan 2024",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Bilkis Bano. Gang-rape convicts freed, then sent back",
"stamp": "Remission quashed by Supreme Court",
"human": {
"v": "11 men convicted of gang rape and 7 murders, set free early, then ordered back to prison",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A survivor forced to fight the very state that released her attackers",
"est": true
},
"what": "On Independence Day 2022, the Gujarat government granted remission to 11 men serving life for the 2002 gang rape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of seven of her family, including a three-year-old. The freed men were garlanded.",
"dodge": "The remission panel reportedly included ruling-party office-bearers, and the release cut against a 2014 central policy barring remission for rape and murder. In 2024 the Supreme Court quashed it, finding Gujarat had usurped jurisdiction and acted in tandem with the convicts. A court, not a conscience, restored the sentence.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Gujarat state government (BJP)",
"r": "Granted the remission"
}
],
"pos": "The state said it applied its 1992 remission policy after the men had served over 15 years.",
"alt": "No early release for gang rape and murder, no political hands on remission panels, and respect for the survivor's right to be heard.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "SC quashes remission",
"url": "https://www.scobserver.in/journal/supreme-court-quashes-the-remission-of-11-convicts-in-bilkis-bano-case/",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "SC cancels release",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/india%2Fsupreme-court-cancels-release-of-11-convicts-in-bilkis-bano-gangrape-case-2839974",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240108130229/https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/india/supreme-court-cancels-release-of-11-convicts-in-bilkis-bano-gangrape-case-2839974"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 7
}
},
{
"no": 24,
"id": "case-24",
"sk": 20221030,
"year": 2022,
"date": "30 Oct 2022",
"cat": "Public safety",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Morbi bridge collapse. 135+ dead, no political head rolled",
"stamp": "Only the contractor charged",
"human": {
"v": "135 to 141 killed, including 47 children; 50+ injured",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "A ₹2 cr maintenance contract on which barely ₹12 lakh was reportedly spent before reopening",
"est": true
},
"what": "A colonial-era suspension bridge, reopened after repairs with no fitness certificate and no load test, snapped over the Machchhu river days later and dropped a festival crowd into the water.",
"timeline": [
{
"sk": 20221026,
"on": "Oct 2022",
"kind": "promise",
"what": "A colonial-era suspension bridge is reopened after repairs, with no fitness certificate and no load test."
},
{
"sk": 20221030,
"on": "30 Oct 2022",
"kind": "incident",
"what": "The bridge snaps over the Machchhu river days later and drops a festival crowd into the water. More than 135 people are killed."
},
{
"sk": 20221101,
"on": "Oct to Nov 2022",
"kind": "action",
"what": "The private operator's managing director is arrested and a municipal official is suspended."
},
{
"sk": 20230101,
"on": "2023",
"kind": "action",
"what": "An SIT holds the private operator and municipal officials responsible."
},
{
"sk": 20230601,
"on": "2023 onward",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "Not one minister in the state government that oversaw the civic body resigns or is held to account. Victims are still fighting for compensation years later."
}
],
"dodge": "An SIT held the private operator and municipal officials responsible; the operator's MD was arrested and an official suspended. But not one BJP minister in the state government that oversaw the civic body resigned or was held to account, and victims were still fighting for compensation years later.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Gujarat state government (BJP)",
"r": "Municipal oversight; no resignation"
}
],
"pos": "The state pointed to the operator's negligence and to the SIT and court process.",
"alt": "Political accountability alongside criminal, a clear chain of responsibility from contractor to civic body to minister, and fast, guaranteed compensation.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "SIT holds Oreva responsible",
"url": "https://www.indiatvnews.com/gujarat/morbi-bridge-collapse-sit-report-holds-oreva-group-md-managers-fully-responsible-for-tragedy-2023-10-10-897190",
"tier": 3,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251213103832/https://www.indiatvnews.com/gujarat/morbi-bridge-collapse-sit-report-holds-oreva-group-md-managers-fully-responsible-for-tragedy-2023-10-10-897190"
},
{
"label": "2 years on, no compensation",
"url": "https://thefederal.com/category/states/west/gujarat/morbi-tragedy-2-years-later-no-closure-no-compensation-for-victims-159325",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251102190949/https://thefederal.com/category/states/west/gujarat/morbi-tragedy-2-years-later-no-closure-no-compensation-for-victims-159325"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 2,
"deaths": 141
}
},
{
"no": 25,
"id": "case-25",
"sk": 20230102,
"year": 2023,
"date": "Jan 2023",
"cat": "Environment",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Joshimath. A Himalayan town sinking",
"stamp": "Warnings ignored for decades",
"human": {
"v": "Hundreds of families evacuated as homes cracked and streets buckled",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "A whole town destabilised, linked to hydro and highway projects",
"est": true
},
"what": "The pilgrimage town of Joshimath in Uttarakhand began sinking in early 2023, with cracks tearing through hundreds of buildings and residents forced out.",
"dodge": "Experts had warned for decades that the fragile slope could not carry heavy construction, and pointed to hydro-power tunnelling and the Char Dham road widening. Those warnings were overridden in the rush to build, and when the town cracked, the state managed the optics more than the causes.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Uttarakhand state government (BJP)",
"r": "Clearances and disaster response"
},
{
"n": "Union environment / power ministries",
"r": "Project approvals"
}
],
"pos": "The government said it was rehabilitating residents and studying the causes.",
"alt": "Heed the geology, halt reckless Himalayan construction, and hold accountable those who cleared projects against expert advice.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Hindu, ISRO NRSC report on Joshimath sinking",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/isro-releases-satellite-images-showing-rise-in-joshimath-land-subsidence/article66373138.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240425072532/https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/isro-releases-satellite-images-showing-rise-in-joshimath-land-subsidence/article66373138.ece"
},
{
"label": "Indian Express, 1976 Mishra Committee warnings",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/from-46-yrs-ago-to-july-2021-report-after-report-rang-alarm-bells-in-joshimath-uttarakhand-subsidence-zone-8371592/",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 26,
"id": "case-26",
"sk": 20230503,
"year": 2023,
"date": "03 May 2023 onward",
"cat": "Public safety",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Manipur. A state on fire, and months of silence",
"stamp": "20 months to a resignation",
"human": {
"v": "~258 killed, 60,000+ displaced, 1,000+ injured, thousands of homes and religious sites burned",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "A state cleaved in two by ethnicity; long internet blackouts and economic collapse",
"est": true
},
"what": "Ethnic violence between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities erupted in May 2023 and ground on for nearly two years, with reports of state complicity and horrific gender-based violence.",
"dodge": "The Prime Minister stayed publicly silent for around three months and stayed away far longer. The BJP Chief Minister clung on through some 20 months of continuous killing, resigning only in 2025 under a looming no-confidence motion, after which rights groups noted that accountability for the violence still had not come. A burning state was treated as an inconvenience to be managed.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "N. Biren Singh",
"r": "Manipur CM (BJP), resigned Feb 2025"
},
{
"n": "Amit Shah",
"r": "Home Minister"
},
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government cited security operations, central forces and later President's Rule, and blamed cross-border factors.",
"alleg": "Allegations of state complicity, including an audio clip attributed to the CM, went to the Supreme Court for forensic examination and remain contested and under process.",
"alt": "Swift accountability at the top, an independent inquiry into complicity, protection and return of the displaced, and justice for gender-based crimes.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Amnesty on the impunity",
"url": "https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/02/india-authorities-must-uphold-human-rights-and-end-violence-in-manipur-following-biren-singhs-resignation/",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "CM resigns after ~2 years (Reuters)",
"url": "https://www.yahoo.com/news/chief-violence-hit-indian-state-152727365.html",
"tier": 3,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250211095029/https://www.yahoo.com/news/chief-violence-hit-indian-state-152727365.html"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 258
},
"resignations": [
{
"n": "N. Biren Singh",
"office": "Manipur Chief Minister",
"when": "Feb 2025",
"year": 2025,
"level": "state",
"party": "BJP"
}
]
},
{
"no": 27,
"id": "case-27",
"sk": 20230519,
"year": 2023,
"date": "19 May 2023",
"cat": "Economic shock",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "₹2,000 note withdrawn. A quiet admission",
"stamp": "Reversed without a reckoning",
"human": {
"v": "Ordinary cash users sent back to bank queues to exchange the note",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "The note introduced in the 2016 note-ban, quietly withdrawn seven years on",
"est": false
},
"what": "The RBI announced the withdrawal of the ₹2,000 note, the very denomination introduced during the 2016 demonetisation as its supposed replacement currency.",
"dodge": "Pulling the note was a tacit confession that a centrepiece of the 2016 upheaval had not worked as promised. It came with no acknowledgement of that failure and no account of the disruption both exercises caused.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Nirmala Sitharaman",
"r": "Finance Minister"
},
{
"n": "Reserve Bank of India",
"r": "Implementing authority"
}
],
"pos": "The government and RBI called it routine currency management under a clean-note policy.",
"alt": "Level with the public about what the 2016 note-ban did and did not achieve, instead of unwinding it in silence.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "RBI press release, Rs 2000 note withdrawal (2023)",
"url": "https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=55707",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260511234459/https://rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=55707"
},
{
"label": "BBC, Rs 2000 note and the 2016 demonetisation",
"url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-65679657",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250503073505/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-65679657"
}
]
},
{
"no": 28,
"id": "case-28",
"sk": 20230602,
"year": 2023,
"date": "02 Jun 2023",
"cat": "Public safety",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Balasore train disaster. The resignation that never came",
"stamp": "No resignation",
"human": {
"v": "~290+ killed and 1,000+ injured in one of India's worst rail crashes",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Hard questions over safety-fund use and vacancies in safety-critical posts",
"est": true
},
"what": "A signalling failure caused a three-train collision near Balasore, Odisha, the deadliest Indian rail accident in decades.",
"dodge": "With scrutiny falling on deferred safety spending and unfilled safety-critical vacancies, the Railways Minister offered words of accountability but did not resign, and the systemic questions were folded into a technical inquiry rather than a political reckoning.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ashwini Vaishnaw",
"r": "Railways Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government pointed to the inquiry and to record investment in rail safety and modernisation.",
"alt": "Publish safety-fund use and vacancy data, close the signalling-integrity gaps, and treat the deadliest crash in decades as a matter of ministerial responsibility.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Hindu on the CRS inquiry into Balasore",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/human-error-led-to-balasore-train-tragedy-says-report-pins-fault-on-signalling-and-telecommunication-department/article67038335.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20231204010835/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/human-error-led-to-balasore-train-tragedy-says-report-pins-fault-on-signalling-and-telecommunication-department/article67038335.ece"
},
{
"label": "CAG Report No. 22 of 2022, railway derailments",
"url": "https://cag.gov.in/uploads/download_audit_report/2022/Report-No.-22-of-2022--Union-Government-(Railways)-Performance-Audit-068b1637f9146b3.65960532.pdf",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251211062355/https://cag.gov.in/uploads/download_audit_report/2022/Report-No.-22-of-2022--Union-Government-(Railways)-Performance-Audit-068b1637f9146b3.65960532.pdf"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 290
}
},
{
"no": 29,
"id": "case-29",
"sk": 20231112,
"year": 2023,
"date": "12 Nov 2023",
"cat": "Public safety",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Silkyara tunnel. 41 men trapped by a rushed project",
"stamp": "Safety questions unanswered",
"human": {
"v": "41 workers trapped for 17 days inside a collapsed Char Dham tunnel; all rescued",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A marquee project with no working escape passage when it caved",
"est": true
},
"what": "Part of the Silkyara tunnel on the flagship Char Dham highway in Uttarakhand collapsed, trapping 41 workers for 17 days until a dramatic manual rescue freed them.",
"dodge": "The tunnel had no completed escape passage despite the requirement, and the wider Char Dham project had long faced warnings about cutting fragile Himalayan slopes and thin environmental scrutiny. The near-tragedy was celebrated as a rescue, while the questions of why it happened went unanswered.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Nitin Gadkari",
"r": "Road Transport and Highways Minister"
},
{
"n": "Union environment ministry",
"r": "Clearances"
}
],
"pos": "The government hailed the rescue and ordered a safety audit of tunnels under construction.",
"alt": "Build the mandated escape routes first, respect Himalayan geology and environmental review, and hold the project accountable for the near-disaster, not just praised for the rescue.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Hindu on the 17-day Silkyara tunnel rescue",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/uttarkashi-silkyara-tunnel-collapse-rescue-workers-updates-november-28/article67582045.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250210184522/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/uttarkashi-silkyara-tunnel-collapse-rescue-workers-updates-november-28/article67582045.ece"
},
{
"label": "Indian Express on Char Dham EIA and escape tunnel",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/citing-cost-time-overrun-uttarkashi-project-said-no-to-separate-rescue-tunnel-9075234/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240611071335/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/citing-cost-time-overrun-uttarkashi-project-said-no-to-separate-rescue-tunnel-9075234/"
}
]
},
{
"no": 30,
"id": "case-30",
"sk": 20231228,
"year": 2023,
"date": "Dec 2023",
"cat": "Democratic institutions",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Election Commission law. The Chief Justice written out",
"stamp": "Watchdog's independence diluted",
"human": {
"v": "Every voter relying on a neutral referee for the vote",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A selection panel re-tilted toward the government of the day",
"est": true
},
"what": "A new law fixed the panel that appoints the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners as the Prime Minister, a Union minister and the Leader of the Opposition, removing the Chief Justice of India, whom the Supreme Court had just placed on it.",
"dodge": "Months after the Court tried to insulate the poll body by adding the Chief Justice, Parliament legislated the Chief Justice back out, handing the ruling side a built-in majority in choosing the referee of its own elections. The umpire's independence was diluted by law, and the government's convenience was the obvious winner.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Arjun Ram Meghwal",
"r": "Law and Justice Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government said Parliament, not the judiciary, is entitled to design the appointment process.",
"alt": "A genuinely independent selection panel, including the judiciary or another non-partisan check, so the referee does not answer to one team.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "PRS summary of the CEC and ECs Bill, 2023",
"url": "https://prsindia.org/billtrack/the-chief-election-commissioner-and-other-election-commissioners-appointment-conditions-of-service-and-term-of-office-bill-2023",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260504211806/https://prsindia.org/billtrack/the-chief-election-commissioner-and-other-election-commissioners-appointment-conditions-of-service-and-term-of-office-bill-2023"
},
{
"label": "Supreme Court, Anoop Baranwal v Union of India",
"url": "https://indiankanoon.org/doc/56882156/",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260507050925/https://indiankanoon.org/doc/56882156/"
}
]
},
{
"no": 31,
"id": "case-31",
"sk": 20240130,
"year": 2024,
"date": "30 Jan 2024",
"cat": "Democratic institutions",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Chandigarh mayor poll. Ballots defaced on camera",
"stamp": "'Murder of democracy'. Supreme Court.",
"human": {
"v": "An entire electorate's verdict, nearly stolen by one official",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "8 opposition votes wrongly voided to hand the seat to the ruling party",
"est": false
},
"what": "In the Chandigarh mayoral election the returning officer declared eight votes of the opposition INDIA bloc invalid, handing the seat to the BJP candidate, while a video showed him defacing ballots and glancing at the camera.",
"dodge": "Caught on tape, the officer's conduct was defended in court by the government's own law officer. The Supreme Court called it a murder of democracy, said the officer should be prosecuted, and took the rare step of counting the voided votes itself to declare the rightful winner, delivering the accountability the system had refused.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Returning Officer / local BJP",
"r": "Conduct of the poll"
}
],
"pos": "The officer first claimed the ballots were already defaced; the Supreme Court rejected this after watching the video.",
"alt": "Independent, videographed election administration with instant consequences for tampering, not a top court forced to referee a rigged municipal vote.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "'The Supreme Court is watching'",
"url": "https://www.scobserver.in/journal/the-supreme-court-is-watching-cji-warns-presiding-officer-allegedly-caught-vote-tampering-in-chandigarh-mayoral-elections/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260218214431/https://www.scobserver.in/journal/the-supreme-court-is-watching-cji-warns-presiding-officer-allegedly-caught-vote-tampering-in-chandigarh-mayoral-elections/"
},
{
"label": "RO to be prosecuted (Bar and Bench)",
"url": "https://www.barandbench.com/news/murder-of-democracy-chandigarh-mayor-polls-returning-officer-prosecuted-supreme-court",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 32,
"id": "case-32",
"sk": 20240505,
"year": 2024,
"date": "05 May 2024",
"cat": "Exam integrity",
"sev": "red",
"title": "NEET / NTA 2024. The paper-leak collapse",
"stamp": "DG sacked. Minister untouched.",
"human": {
"v": "~2.4 million (24 lakh) NEET candidates thrown into chaos; careers and a year on the line",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Re-tests, coaching costs and lost time across a multi-thousand-crore exam economy",
"est": true
},
"what": "India's medical entrance exam was hit by a paper leak traced to Bihar and a grace-marks fiasco that produced an impossible cluster of perfect scores, with the CBI arresting a leak network.",
"dodge": "The NTA first branded the leak reports baseless, then the government sacked the agency's chief, formed a committee and passed an anti-cheating law, while the Education Minister carried no personal accountability at all. The fix did not hold, as 2026 would prove.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Dharmendra Pradhan",
"r": "Education Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government cites the CBI probe, the sacked chief, a reform committee and a new anti-cheating Act.",
"alt": "Own it at the top and rebuild the testing agency end to end, so 2.4 million futures do not hinge on a leaky trunk.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The hole that wasn't plugged (ThePrint)",
"url": "https://theprint.in/opinion/newsmaker-of-the-week/neet-paper-leak-came-from-a-hole-that-wasnt-plugged-in-2024-nta-is-ignoring-its-problems/2932680/",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Probe so far (Outlook)",
"url": "https://www.outlookindia.com/national/neet-ug-exam-2024-paper-leak-sanjeev-lutan-mukhiya-gang-bihar-jharkhand-oasis-school-cbi-probe",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240731110457/https://www.outlookindia.com/national/neet-ug-exam-2024-paper-leak-sanjeev-lutan-mukhiya-gang-bihar-jharkhand-oasis-school-cbi-probe"
}
]
},
{
"no": 33,
"id": "case-33",
"sk": 20240622,
"year": 2024,
"date": "Jan to Jun 2024",
"cat": "Public safety",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Showcase infrastructure that failed on schedule",
"stamp": "Blamed on rain, never owned",
"human": {
"v": "A death at a collapsing airport canopy; countless citizens on unsafe new-built roads and bridges",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Crores in flagship projects, such as a ~₹1,800 cr temple complex, leaking or caving within months",
"est": true
},
"what": "A run of prestige projects failed soon after grand inaugurations. New Ayodhya roads caved and the temple sanctum leaked in the first rains, a Delhi airport canopy collapsed and killed a man, and newly built bridges and airport roofs failed across states.",
"dodge": "Each failure was blamed on unprecedented rain or a nameless contractor and quietly patched. Inaugurate with fanfare, fail within months, hold no one to account. It is the signature of a state that rewards the ribbon-cutting and ignores the engineering.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Nitin Gadkari",
"r": "Road Transport (highways)"
},
{
"n": "Civil Aviation Ministry",
"r": "Airport infrastructure"
},
{
"n": "Yogi Adityanath",
"r": "UP CM (Ayodhya works)"
}
],
"pos": "Authorities blamed exceptional weather and promised swift repairs and inquiries.",
"alt": "Publish quality audits and third-party structural certification before inauguration, and hold agencies, not the weather, to account when showcase projects fail.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Ayodhya temple roof leaks",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/ayodhya-ram-temple-chief-priest-reports-a-leaky-roof-all-you-need-to-know-124062500173_1.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260314134753/https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/ayodhya-ram-temple-chief-priest-reports-a-leaky-roof-all-you-need-to-know-124062500173_1.html"
},
{
"label": "New roads caving in Ayodhya",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/india%2Futtar-pradesh%2Fayodhya-ram-temples-roof-leaking-after-heavy-showers-on-saturday-night-priest-blames-lack-of-drainage-3079201",
"tier": 2
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 1800,
"deaths": 1
}
},
{
"no": 34,
"id": "case-34",
"sk": 20241225,
"year": 2024,
"date": "Approved 2021. Launched Dec 2024.",
"cat": "Environment",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Ken-Betwa river link. A tiger reserve for a headline",
"stamp": "Warnings overridden",
"human": {
"v": "~7,000 mostly tribal families across 21 to 22 villages to lose land and homes",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "₹44,605 cr; up to 2 to 4 million trees felled; core Panna Tiger Reserve submerged",
"est": true
},
"what": "The Ken-Betwa river-linking project, approved in 2021 and launched by the Prime Minister in December 2024, will dam the Ken to send water to the Betwa, submerging around 9,000 hectares, including roughly 5,800 hectares of the core of the Panna Tiger Reserve.",
"dodge": "The Supreme Court's own Central Empowered Committee warned of irreversible damage, and experts called it a designed disaster, yet it was pushed through as a showpiece for river-linking. Madhya Pradesh bears the ecological and human cost, thousands of tribal families lose ancestral land, and the environmental warnings were simply overruled.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Union Jal Shakti Ministry",
"r": "Project lead"
},
{
"n": "Bhupender Yadav",
"r": "Environment Minister (clearances)"
},
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister (launch)"
}
],
"pos": "The government says the project will bring water to drought-hit Bundelkhand and irrigate lakhs of hectares.",
"alt": "Weigh irreversible tiger-habitat and forest loss honestly, exhaust local water options first, and secure genuine, informed consent from displaced tribal communities.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Panna core to be submerged",
"url": "https://www.downtoearth.org.in/environment/ken-betwa-river-interlinking-core-forest-area-of-panna-tiger-reserve-will-come-under-water-warns-study-80885",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251007153228/https://www.downtoearth.org.in/environment/ken-betwa-river-interlinking-core-forest-area-of-panna-tiger-reserve-will-come-under-water-warns-study-80885"
},
{
"label": "'Politically motivated', say experts",
"url": "https://thekashmirimages.com/2025/02/21/ken-betwa-link-project-politically-motivated-shouldve-never-been-approved-experts/",
"tier": 3
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 44605
}
},
{
"no": 35,
"id": "case-35",
"sk": 20250401,
"year": 2025,
"date": "Apr 2025 onward",
"cat": "Consumer harm",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "E20 petrol. No fuel choice, no compensation",
"stamp": "Consumers left to absorb the cost",
"human": {
"v": "Millions of pre-2023 vehicle owners; ~28% report unusual wear, ~2 in 3 report lower mileage",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "2 to 5% mileage loss nationwide, plus repair bills and rejected insurance claims",
"est": true
},
"what": "India completed a nationwide switch to 20 percent ethanol-blended petrol six years ahead of target, making E20 effectively the only fuel at pumps, with no unblended option and no price difference.",
"dodge": "Owners of older vehicles never designed for E20 report falling mileage, corrosion and repair costs, yet were given no choice, no labelling and no compensation. The government's answer was that the fuel is safe, and the Supreme Court declined to step in, so consumers were left to swallow a cost the state imposed on them.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Hardeep Singh Puri",
"r": "Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The ministry says E20 cuts crude imports and emissions, helps farmers, and passed extensive compatibility testing.",
"alt": "Offer a labelled, unblended choice at the pump as the US and EU do, and compensate or grandfather owners of vehicles never built for E20.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Owner anger, questions for govt (Al Jazeera)",
"url": "https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/15/indias-ethanol-rush-prompts-anger-among-vehicle-owners-questions-for-govt",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260719121032/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/15/indias-ethanol-rush-prompts-anger-among-vehicle-owners-questions-for-govt"
},
{
"label": "SC dismisses challenge",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/sc-throws-out-pil-against-centre-allowing-20-ethanol-blended-petrol-3707355",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250918004813/https://www.deccanherald.com/india/sc-throws-out-pil-against-centre-allowing-20-ethanol-blended-petrol-3707355"
}
]
},
{
"no": 36,
"id": "case-36",
"sk": 20260503,
"year": 2026,
"date": "03 May 2026",
"cat": "Exam integrity",
"sev": "red",
"title": "NEET 2026. The 'fixed' exam leaks all over again",
"stamp": "Reforms failed. Cancelled anew.",
"human": {
"v": "~2.27 million aspirants; the exam cancelled nine days after it was held",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Another lost year for a generation of medical hopefuls; a nation of parents back on edge",
"est": true
},
"what": "Two years after the 2024 debacle and a fanfare of reforms, GPS-tracked papers, jammers and a new anti-cheating law, NEET-UG 2026 was cancelled on 12 May after a circulating guess paper was found to overlap heavily with the real exam. The CBI moved in and arrests followed.",
"dodge": "The repeat laid the 2024 fixes bare as theatre. The same agency, the same leak, the same script of a sacked official and a fresh committee. No minister has owned the second collapse, even as it fed a nationwide youth protest movement over exam integrity and jobs. The message to 2.27 million young people was that their futures are expendable.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Dharmendra Pradhan",
"r": "Education Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government again pointed to the CBI probe, the arrests and a scheduled re-examination.",
"alt": "Treat a second collapse as a resignation-level failure and rebuild exam security under genuinely independent oversight, not another in-house committee.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Hindu: NEET-UG 2026 cancelled after leak",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/education/neet-ug-2026-cancelled-to-be-reconducted-paper-leak-nta-may-12-2026/article70968713.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260512080216/https://www.thehindu.com/education/neet-ug-2026-cancelled-to-be-reconducted-paper-leak-nta-may-12-2026/article70968713.ece"
},
{
"label": "Indian Express: NTA scraps exam, orders CBI probe",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/education/neet-paper-leak-nta-cancels-neet-ug-2026-fresh-dates-soon-10685084/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260513112758/https://indianexpress.com/article/education/neet-paper-leak-nta-cancels-neet-ug-2026-fresh-dates-soon-10685084/"
}
]
},
{
"no": 37,
"id": "case-37",
"sk": 20260601,
"year": 2026,
"date": "2021 to 2026 (crisis peak 2026)",
"cat": "Exam integrity",
"sev": "red",
"title": "The children the exam system killed",
"stamp": "'No data', says the government",
"human": {
"v": "~12 to 14 student deaths reported around the 2026 NEET leak and forced re-exam; scores more in prior years",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "A generation taught that a rigged system holds their lives cheap",
"est": true
},
"what": "After the 2026 NEET leak, cancellation and a stressful forced re-examination, around a dozen students were reported to have died by suicide amid the anguish, part of a documented pattern of exam-linked student deaths over several years.",
"dodge": "Asked in Parliament about student suicides in the coaching-and-exam pipeline, the government replied that it maintains no such data, the same refusal to count that it deployed on migrants and on the oxygen dead. A system that leaks papers, cancels exams and then cannot even be bothered to count the young lives lost is a system that has stopped caring who it breaks.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Dharmendra Pradhan",
"r": "Education Minister"
},
{
"n": "Union Education Ministry",
"r": "NTA and exam policy"
}
],
"pos": "The government says education is largely a state subject and that it has moved to ease exam pressure and add counselling.",
"alt": "Count and publish the deaths, fix exam integrity and scheduling, fund real student mental-health support, and treat each loss as a failure of the state, not a statistic to avoid.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "13 reported deaths after leak (Outlook)",
"url": "https://www.outlookindia.com/amp/story/national/13-reported-suicides-after-neet-paper-leak",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260620005151/https://www.outlookindia.com/amp/story/national/13-reported-suicides-after-neet-paper-leak"
},
{
"label": "Govt: 'no data' on student suicides",
"url": "https://news.careers360.com/no-data-on-student-suicides-in-neet-coaching-centres-government-tells-lok-sabha/amp",
"tier": 3
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 14
}
},
{
"no": 38,
"id": "case-38",
"sk": 20260520,
"year": 2026,
"date": "2014 to 2026",
"cat": "Economic shock",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "The falling rupee. The yardstick they buried",
"stamp": "Own metric, quietly abandoned",
"human": {
"v": "Costlier fuel, imports, foreign study and medicine for every household",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "From ~₹59 per dollar in May 2014 to a record ~₹96.8 in May 2026",
"est": false
},
"what": "The rupee slid to a series of record lows through 2026, touching around 96.8 to the US dollar, having stood near 59 when this government took office in 2014.",
"dodge": "The party that once brandished a falling rupee as proof of the previous government's weakness has presided over a far steeper slide, and now waves it away as the work of global forces alone. Whatever the mix of causes, the silence on its own former yardstick is its own small act of unaccountability.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Nirmala Sitharaman",
"r": "Finance Minister"
},
{
"n": "Reserve Bank of India",
"r": "Currency management"
}
],
"pos": "The government points, with some justification, to a strong dollar, high oil prices, US tariffs and global capital flows.",
"alt": "Apply one honest standard over time, name the real causes without spin, and stop treating a currency as a scoreboard only when it suits.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Hindu: rupee closes at record 96.83, May 2026",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/business/markets/rupee-slips-13-paise-to-hit-fresh-lifetime-low-of-9683-against-us-dollar/article71001792.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260520113922/https://www.thehindu.com/business/markets/rupee-slips-13-paise-to-hit-fresh-lifetime-low-of-9683-against-us-dollar/article71001792.ece"
},
{
"label": "The Hindu: rupee at record 96.52, May 19 2026",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/business/markets/indian-rupee-us-dollar-may-19-2026-forex-markets/article70997255.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260519092441/https://www.thehindu.com/business/markets/indian-rupee-us-dollar-may-19-2026-forex-markets/article70997255.ece"
}
]
},
{
"no": 39,
"id": "case-39",
"sk": 20260607,
"year": 2026,
"date": "Jun 2026 onward",
"cat": "Fund opacity",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Ram Mandir donation theft. Faith, cash and deleted tape",
"stamp": "Cosmetic resignations, no real inquiry",
"human": {
"v": "Crores in offerings from ordinary devotees, allegedly siphoned by insiders",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Claims ranged from ₹5 to 7.5 cr to media estimates topping ₹200 cr missing",
"est": true
},
"what": "An alleged racket saw daily cash offerings at the Ayodhya Ram temple siphoned off by insiders. A state SIT found suspicious pilferage on camera, staff appointed on the recommendation of trust officials, and CCTV footage allegedly deleted despite audit warnings to keep long backups.",
"dodge": "A trust the government itself says is not answerable to it, stuffed with figures from the ruling ecosystem, presided over faith money vanishing while cameras were wiped and warnings ignored. The response was cosmetic. Key office-bearers resigned on moral grounds yet stayed on as trust members, in what critics bluntly called an eyewash, with no wider independent inquiry.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust",
"r": "A trust, not a govt body, but tied to the ruling ecosystem"
},
{
"n": "UP state administration",
"r": "Policing and oversight"
}
],
"pos": "Trust officials said they themselves sought the SIT probe and were unaware of the alleged theft.",
"alleg": "The theft and the scale of missing funds are under SIT investigation and not yet proven; figures are contested media and official estimates.",
"alt": "An independent audit and inquiry, full public accounts for a trust built on public devotion, real accountability rather than resignations that change nothing, and transparency the government cannot disclaim.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "SIT report, lack of accountability",
"url": "https://www.opindia.com/2026/07/ayodhya-donation-theft-sit-report-lack-of-accountability-gross-mismanagement-ignored-warnings/",
"tier": 3,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260719191702/https://www.opindia.com/2026/07/ayodhya-donation-theft-sit-report-lack-of-accountability-gross-mismanagement-ignored-warnings/"
},
{
"label": "Who is responsible (The Week)",
"url": "https://www.theweek.in/magazine/theweek/statescan/2026/07/04/faith-and-fraud-who-is-responsible-for-ayodhyas-ram-temple-donation-theft.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260722060541/https://www.theweek.in/magazine/theweek/statescan/2026/07/04/faith-and-fraud-who-is-responsible-for-ayodhyas-ram-temple-donation-theft.html"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 200
}
},
{
"no": 40,
"id": "case-40",
"sk": 20260701,
"year": 2026,
"date": "Jul 2026",
"cat": "Public safety",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Delhi-Dehradun Expressway. Potholes in ten weeks",
"stamp": "Officials suspended, quality doubted",
"human": {
"v": "Motorists on a flagship expressway hit by tyre damage on a caved stretch",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "A marquee highway degrading within roughly 10 weeks of its opening",
"est": true
},
"what": "About two and a half months after its high-profile opening, a stretch of the new Delhi-Dehradun Expressway near Shamli developed deep potholes after heavy rain, with motorists reportedly suffering tyre damage.",
"dodge": "The highways authority blamed a blocked culvert and local land issues, suspended some officials and ordered an inquiry, the now-familiar loop of blame the rain, patch the hole, move on. Opposition demands for accountability on construction quality met the usual reassurance that prompt action had been taken.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Nitin Gadkari",
"r": "Road Transport and Highways Minister"
},
{
"n": "NHAI",
"r": "Executing authority"
}
],
"pos": "The authority said the damage was from waterlogging due to a blocked culvert, was fixed quickly, and officials were suspended pending inquiry.",
"alt": "Independent quality audits and enforceable contractor warranties for flagship highways, with the findings published, not another inquiry that quietly closes.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Hindu: expressway cave-in after rains, Jul 2026",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/part-of-new-delhi-dehradun-expressway-caves-in-after-rains/article71174237.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260702140931/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/part-of-new-delhi-dehradun-expressway-caves-in-after-rains/article71174237.ece"
},
{
"label": "Indian Express: NHAI on Shamli cave-in",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-dehradun-expressway-cave-in-shamli-nhai-reason-10768265/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260728141302/https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-dehradun-expressway-cave-in-shamli-nhai-reason-10768265/"
}
]
},
{
"no": 41,
"id": "case-41",
"sk": 20230124,
"year": 2023,
"date": "24 Jan 2023",
"cat": "Crony capital (alleged)",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Adani-Hindenburg. And the JPC that was refused",
"stamp": "Alleged. JPC probe refused.",
"human": {
"v": "Retail investors and LIC and SBI stakeholders exposed to the 2023 market rout",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Tens of billions of dollars in market value wiped out in the 2023 sell-off (contested cause)",
"est": true
},
"what": "A short-seller's report accused the Adani Group, a conglomerate widely seen as close to the government, of stock manipulation and accounting fraud, triggering a huge sell-off.",
"dodge": "With public-sector LIC and SBI exposed, the opposition demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee to examine the ties between political power and corporate rise. The government refused, leaving the proximity questions to a narrow regulatory process rather than open parliamentary scrutiny.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Union Finance Ministry",
"r": "Oversight of markets and PSU exposure"
}
],
"pos": "The government denied favouritism; an SC-appointed panel found no conclusive regulatory failure, and SEBI continued its probe.",
"alleg": "The manipulation and crony-capitalism claims are allegations, denied by the group and not established by courts. The accountability point is the refusal of independent parliamentary scrutiny.",
"alt": "Grant a JPC or an equivalent independent probe, and ring-fence public financial institutions from politically sensitive exposures.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Hindu on Hindenburg claims and Adani denial",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/adani-group-to-explore-legal-options-against-hindenburg-in-india-and-us/article66435173.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240525021041/https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/adani-group-to-explore-legal-options-against-hindenburg-in-india-and-us/article66435173.ece"
},
{
"label": "Supreme Court, Vishal Tiwari v Union of India 2024",
"url": "https://indiankanoon.org/doc/188573380/",
"tier": 1
}
]
},
{
"no": 42,
"id": "case-42",
"sk": 20230118,
"year": 2023,
"date": "Jan to May 2023",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Wrestlers' protest. A ruling-party MP shielded",
"stamp": "Accusers policed, accused protected",
"human": {
"v": "Olympic medallists among the complainants; a minor among the original accusers",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "India's most decorated wrestlers dragged from a protest and booked",
"est": true
},
"what": "Top wrestlers, including Olympic medallists, sat in at Jantar Mantar accusing the Wrestling Federation chief and six-time BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of sexually harassing female athletes.",
"dodge": "Police registered cases only after the Supreme Court intervened. As the new Parliament was inaugurated, the protesting wrestlers were detained, dragged away and later booked. The accused MP was never arrested. The state policed the accusers and protected the accused, and the Prime Minister said nothing.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh",
"r": "BJP MP and WFI chief (accused)"
},
{
"n": "Amit Shah",
"r": "Home Ministry (Delhi Police)"
}
],
"pos": "Singh denied all allegations; the government said the law was taking its course and a chargesheet was filed.",
"alleg": "The harassment allegations are before the courts. The accountability failure is the delay in registering cases and the policing of the complainants.",
"alt": "Prompt, unbiased investigation of complaints against the powerful, protection for complainants, and no shielding of an accused because he holds a party seat.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Wrestling chief charged (CNN)",
"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/india/india-brij-bhushan-singh-charged-wrestlers-intl-hnk",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240816215424/https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/india/india-brij-bhushan-singh-charged-wrestlers-intl-hnk/"
},
{
"label": "Case only after SC (BBC)",
"url": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-65421389",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 43,
"id": "case-43",
"sk": 20241113,
"year": 2024,
"date": "Practice 2022 to 2024. SC ruling Nov 2024.",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "'Bulldozer justice'. Punishment by demolition",
"stamp": "Ruled unconstitutional by SC",
"human": {
"v": "Homes and shops of the merely accused, often Muslim, often poor, flattened without a trial",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "SC later ordered ₹60 lakh restitution for six wrongly-demolished Prayagraj families",
"est": true
},
"what": "Several BJP-run states demolished the homes of people merely accused of crimes or of joining protests, staging the bulldozer as instant justice.",
"dodge": "For years the practice ran as a spectacle of power, punishing whole families before any court had ruled. Only in November 2024 did the Supreme Court declare punitive demolitions unconstitutional, the executive cannot become a judge, and make officials personally liable. Accountability came from the bench, never from the governments that drove the bulldozer.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "BJP state governments (UP, MP, Rajasthan and others)",
"r": "Ordered the demolitions"
}
],
"pos": "States said they demolished only illegal structures under municipal law, not as punishment.",
"alt": "Due process for every demolition, notice, hearing and appeal, and personal liability for officials who bulldoze homes as punishment.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "SC bans 'bulldozer justice' (BBC)",
"url": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/articles/c0k8d3ynvzxo",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Court denounces demolitions (NBC)",
"url": "https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-top-court-denounces-bulldozer-justice-demolitions-rcna180094",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251007132756/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-top-court-denounces-bulldozer-justice-demolitions-rcna180094"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 0.6
}
},
{
"no": 44,
"id": "case-44",
"sk": 20191211,
"year": 2019,
"date": "Passed Dec 2019. Rules notified Mar 2024.",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "CAA. Religion written into citizenship",
"stamp": "Contested. Under challenge in the SC.",
"human": {
"v": "The first religion test in Indian citizenship; anti-CAA protests left 25+ dead, over 20 of them in Uttar Pradesh",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "The stake is the secular basis of Indian citizenship, not a rupee figure",
"est": false
},
"what": "The Citizenship Amendment Act amended the 1955 law to fast-track citizenship for non-Muslim migrants, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian, who entered from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan before 31 December 2014. For the first time in independent India, religion became a criterion in naturalisation. The rules were notified in March 2024, more than four years later, just before the general election.",
"dodge": "The law was pushed through amid the largest protests in years, met with police crackdowns and, in places, deadly violence, and paired with talk of a nationwide NRC that raised the spectre of a documentation trap with a religious escape hatch open to some communities and shut to Muslims. The government has faced no reckoning for the protest deaths, sat on the rules for over four years and then rushed them out on the eve of an election, and the constitutional questions remain unresolved in court while the divisions it opened harden.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Amit Shah",
"r": "Home Minister"
}
],
"pos": "The government says the law is purely humanitarian, offers refuge to persecuted minorities, takes away no Indian's citizenship, and that mere under-inclusion of a group is no ground to strike a law down.",
"alleg": "The claim that the CAA is unconstitutional and discriminates on religion, violating Articles 14 and 21, is the case made by around 230 petitioners and is pending before the Supreme Court, which has declined to stay the law and set final hearings for 2026. It has not been adjudicated.",
"alt": "A religion-neutral asylum and refugee framework that shelters anyone facing persecution on the evidence of their plight, not the label of their faith, meeting the humanitarian aim without dividing citizenship along sectarian lines.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "SC to hear ~200 petitions, final hearings 2026",
"url": "https://www.scobserver.in/reports/citizenship-amendment-act-supreme-court-schedules-final-hearings-in-may-2026/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260604204349/https://www.scobserver.in/reports/citizenship-amendment-act-supreme-court-schedules-final-hearings-in-may-2026/"
},
{
"label": "Rules called 'prima facie unconstitutional' (LiveLaw)",
"url": "https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/indian-union-muslim-league-moves-supreme-court-to-stay-citizenship-amendment-rules-2024-251925",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240327095101/https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/indian-union-muslim-league-moves-supreme-court-to-stay-citizenship-amendment-rules-2024-251925"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 25
}
},
{
"no": 45,
"id": "case-45",
"sk": 20180214,
"year": 2018,
"date": "Mallya fled 2016. PNB scam broke Feb 2018.",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "The fugitives who fled with public money",
"stamp": "They fled. Little recovered.",
"human": {
"v": "State-owned banks and, through them, the taxpayer left holding thousands of crore",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "PNB fraud ~₹13,000 to 14,500 cr; 15 declared fugitive offenders owe banks ~₹58,000 cr, of which only ~₹19,000 cr recovered",
"est": true
},
"what": "Diamond tycoons Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi allegedly defrauded state-owned Punjab National Bank of around ₹13,000 to 14,500 crore through fake Letters of Undertaking, the biggest banking fraud in Indian history, while liquor baron Vijay Mallya defaulted on over ₹9,000 crore owed by his airline. All of them left the country before or just as the cases broke.",
"dodge": "Each high-profile accused slipped out of India on the government's watch, Mallya in 2016, and Nirav Modi in early 2018, weeks before the PNB fraud went public and days after he was photographed among industrialists at a Davos event with the Prime Minister. Years of assurances that they would be brought back have produced drawn-out extradition battles and only a fraction of the money recovered. The oversight failure that let them walk out of the country has answered to no one.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Nirmala Sitharaman",
"r": "Finance Minister (banking oversight)"
},
{
"n": "Union Finance Ministry",
"r": "Public-sector banks"
}
],
"pos": "The government points to the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act of 2018, ongoing extradition efforts, partial recoveries, and insists the defaulters remain liable.",
"alleg": "The specific charges against the fugitives are before the courts in India and abroad. The accountability failure logged here is that they were able to flee at all, and that most of the public money is still unrecovered.",
"alt": "A system that flags and stops large defaulters before they board a plane, genuinely fast extradition, and real recovery of public-bank money, rather than photo-ops and promises.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "15 fugitive offenders owe banks ~₹58,000 cr",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/centre-says-15-fugitive-economic-offenders-including-vijay-mallya-nirav-modi-owe-rs-58000-cr-to-banks-3816219",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251214162849/https://www.deccanherald.com/india/centre-says-15-fugitive-economic-offenders-including-vijay-mallya-nirav-modi-owe-rs-58000-cr-to-banks-3816219"
},
{
"label": "'All coming back to face law', said FM",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/mallya-nirav-modi-mehul-choksi-all-coming-back-to-face-law-fm-sitharaman-963510.html",
"tier": 2
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 39000
}
},
{
"no": 46,
"id": "case-46",
"sk": 20250318,
"year": 2025,
"date": "2014 to 2025 (cumulative)",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "₹16 lakh crore written off. About 16% recovered.",
"stamp": "Public money, quietly erased",
"human": {
"v": "Borne by public-sector banks and, ultimately, ordinary depositors and taxpayers",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "~₹16.35 to 16.61 lakh cr in bad loans written off since 2014; only about 16% recovered; roughly ₹9.26 lakh cr of it owed by big industry",
"est": true
},
"what": "Indian banks wrote off around ₹16.6 lakh crore in bad loans since 2014, according to RBI data given in an RTI reply and in Parliament, of which only about 16 percent has been recovered. The bulk, roughly ₹9 lakh crore, was owed by large industry and services.",
"dodge": "Write-offs are, as the government insists, prudential accounting rather than formal waivers, yet the pattern is hard to stomach: colossal sums of public-bank money erased, overwhelmingly for big corporate borrowers, with recovery stuck near a sixth, while the borrowers' identities stay shielded under the RBI Act. The gulf between how gently large defaulters are treated and how hard small ones are chased has never been honestly answered.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Nirmala Sitharaman",
"r": "Finance Minister"
},
{
"n": "Reserve Bank of India",
"r": "Banking regulator"
}
],
"pos": "The government says write-offs are accounting measures, that borrowers remain liable, that recovery is an ongoing process, and that gross NPAs have since fallen to multi-year lows.",
"alt": "Publish the names of big defaulters, pursue corporate recovery as relentlessly as small-borrower recovery, and account transparently for exactly what public money was lost and to whom.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "₹16.61 lakh cr written off since 2014, 16% recovered",
"url": "https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/business/banks-write-off-rs-1661-lakh-crore-in-loans-since-2014-recovery-stands-at-16-pc",
"tier": 3,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260505221216/https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/business/banks-write-off-rs-1661-lakh-crore-in-loans-since-2014-recovery-stands-at-16-pc"
},
{
"label": "₹16.35 lakh cr over a decade, bulk to big industry",
"url": "https://www.moneylife.in/article/rs1635-lakh-crore-bad-loans-written-off-by-banks-in-past-10-years-govt/76651.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260502063909/https://www.moneylife.in/article/rs1635-lakh-crore-bad-loans-written-off-by-banks-in-past-10-years-govt/76651.html"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 1661000
}
},
{
"no": 47,
"id": "case-47",
"sk": 20190831,
"year": 2019,
"date": "Published 31 Aug 2019, in limbo since",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Assam NRC. ₹1,600 crore, then disowned",
"stamp": "Built, then rejected by its own backers",
"human": {
"v": "19,06,657 people left off the final list, their citizenship in limbo for years, disproportionately the poor and minorities",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "~₹1,600 cr and a decade of work by tens of thousands of officials, left unimplemented",
"est": true
},
"what": "The Supreme-Court-monitored National Register of Citizens in Assam, an exercise the BJP had long campaigned for, cost around ₹1,600 crore and a decade of work by tens of thousands of officials, and on 31 August 2019 excluded 19,06,657 people from the final list.",
"dodge": "Having finally got the register it had demanded, the BJP-led state government and the Centre then refused to accept the result, alleging irregularities and seeking a re-verification, so the ₹1,600 crore exercise sits in limbo, unimplemented to this day. Rejection slips were never properly issued, and 19 lakh people were left in citizenship limbo with no closure. A vast public spend produced an outcome its own sponsors disowned the moment it did not suit them.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Amit Shah",
"r": "Home Minister"
},
{
"n": "Assam state government (BJP)",
"r": "Demanded, then disowned, the NRC"
}
],
"pos": "The government says it sought re-verification to ensure a correct, error-free register, and that the whole process was monitored by the Supreme Court.",
"alt": "Either stand by a court-monitored result or never launch a divisive, ruinously costly exercise you intend to disown, and give the 19 lakh excluded a fair, funded and time-bound path to be heard.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "₹1,600 cr later, NRC still in limbo",
"url": "https://assamtribune.com/assam/rs-1600-cr-later-assam-nrc-still-in-limbo-aasu-seeks-re-verification-1579359",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250915201102/https://assamtribune.com/assam/rs-1600-cr-later-assam-nrc-still-in-limbo-aasu-seeks-re-verification-1579359"
},
{
"label": "Govt refused to accept the final list",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/national/east-and-northeast/assam-discontinues-services-of-200-members-of-fts-appointed-to-clear-nrc-claims-1153897.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20221121012700/https://www.deccanherald.com/national/east-and-northeast/assam-discontinues-services-of-200-members-of-fts-appointed-to-clear-nrc-claims-1153897.html"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 1600
}
},
{
"no": 48,
"id": "case-48",
"sk": 20260601,
"year": 2026,
"date": "Jun 2026 (allegation)",
"cat": "Crony capital (alleged)",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "MP Chief Minister's family land, and a buried demand for a probe",
"stamp": "Alleged. Denied. No inquiry ordered.",
"human": {
"v": "Public trust in whether high office was used to profit from insider knowledge of land values",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Media put the alleged family-linked purchases at ~168 acres across ~137 parcels, worth ~₹45 cr, around Ujjain",
"est": true
},
"what": "Media reports in June 2026 alleged that firms and family members linked to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav had acquired around 137 land parcels, roughly 168 acres, in and around Ujjain, concentrated in areas expected to rise in value from planned government infrastructure and development.",
"dodge": "Whatever the truth of the purchases, the accountability question is what followed. The Chief Minister's office flatly denied that he or his wife had bought any land since he took office and called the reports misleading; the opposition demanded a judicial inquiry overseen by a sitting Supreme Court judge; and the government ordered no independent probe at all. A serious public allegation that office may have been used to gain from insider land values was met with a denial and a press line, not with the transparent, independent scrutiny that alone could clear it or prove it.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Mohan Yadav",
"r": "MP Chief Minister (BJP)"
}
],
"pos": "The Chief Minister's Office denies that he or his wife purchased any land since he took office in December 2023, and calls the media reports misleading, promising a detailed response.",
"alleg": "This is an unproven allegation based on media reporting and raised by opposition parties. It has not been tested by any court or independent inquiry, and the Chief Minister denies it. It is logged here for the accountability question it raises, not as an established fact.",
"alt": "Refer serious conflict-of-interest allegations against those in office to a genuinely independent inquiry, and routinely publish the land and asset records of office-holders and their families, so the answer comes from scrutiny rather than a denial.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Indian Express: family land purchases in Ujjain",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/madhya-pradesh-cm-mohan-yadav-family-ujjain-land-deals-10752557/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260628132154/https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/madhya-pradesh-cm-mohan-yadav-family-ujjain-land-deals-10752557/"
},
{
"label": "Scroll: Congress demands independent probe",
"url": "https://scroll.in/latest/1093805/congress-asks-bjp-if-it-will-allow-independent-probe-into-madhya-pradesh-cms-land-purchases",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260723213444/https://scroll.in/latest/1093805/congress-asks-bjp-if-it-will-allow-independent-probe-into-madhya-pradesh-cms-land-purchases"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 45
}
},
{
"no": 49,
"id": "case-49",
"sk": 20230808,
"year": 2023,
"date": "CAG report tabled Aug 2023",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Ayushman Bharat. Dead patients 'treated', ghost phone numbers",
"stamp": "CAG-flagged fraud, no reckoning",
"human": {
"v": "The poor the scheme exists to cover, crowded out by fraud and, the audit found, sometimes still charged despite 'cashless' care",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "₹6.97 cr paid to 'treat' 3,446 patients already recorded as dead; up to 7.5 lakh beneficiaries on one phone number",
"est": false
},
"what": "The national auditor's 2023 performance audit of the Ayushman Bharat health-insurance scheme found up to 7.5 lakh beneficiaries registered against a single mobile number (9999999999), thousands registered against the same Aadhaar numbers, ₹6.97 crore paid for the treatment of 3,446 patients already recorded as dead, and tens of thousands of cases of one patient admitted to several hospitals at the same time.",
"dodge": "This is not an opposition allegation but a finding of the Comptroller and Auditor General, tabled in Parliament. It points to large-scale leakage of public health money into fraud and ghost claims in a scheme meant for the poorest, with weak checks to stop it. The Health Ministry disputed how the mobile-number data should be read, but the core irregularities passed without any senior accountability or a full, public reckoning.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Mansukh Mandaviya",
"r": "Health Minister (2023)"
},
{
"n": "National Health Authority",
"r": "Scheme administration"
}
],
"pos": "The Health Ministry said mobile numbers play no role in verifying beneficiaries, that dummy numbers were used, and that AI-based checks and action on around 1.6 lakh flagged claims show fraud is being tackled.",
"alt": "Close the ghost-beneficiary and dead-patient loopholes, publish the fraud and recovery data, and hold administrators accountable for public health money lost to leakage.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "'Dead' patients treated; ghost numbers (Business Today)",
"url": "https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/policy/story/ayushman-bharat-patients-shown-as-dead-getting-treatment-985-lakh-ab-pmjay-beneficiaries-linked-to-same-mobile-number-says-cag-report-393403-2023-08-09",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260727134109/https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/policy/story/ayushman-bharat-patients-shown-as-dead-getting-treatment-985-lakh-ab-pmjay-beneficiaries-linked-to-same-mobile-number-says-cag-report-393403-2023-08-09"
},
{
"label": "₹6.97 cr paid to dead patients (CAG)",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/health/healthcare/rs-697-crore-was-paid-to-dead-patients-under-pmjay-cag-2649876",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20241109081338/https://www.deccanherald.com/health/healthcare/rs-697-crore-was-paid-to-dead-patients-under-pmjay-cag-2649876"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 6.97
}
},
{
"no": 50,
"id": "case-50",
"sk": 20140601,
"year": 2014,
"date": "Launched 2014, ongoing",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Namami Gange. Tens of thousands of crore, a river still filthy",
"stamp": "Money spent, results missing",
"human": {
"v": "The crores who live along a Ganga still carrying large volumes of untreated sewage",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Outlays of ₹20,000 cr and then ₹22,500 cr; over ₹13,000 cr spent; CAG flagged unspent funds and failing sewage plants",
"est": true
},
"what": "Launched in 2014 as the Prime Minister's flagship river-cleaning mission with an outlay of ₹20,000 crore, later topped up to ₹22,500 crore, Namami Gange has seen more than ₹13,000 crore spent, yet the Ganga still carries large volumes of untreated sewage.",
"dodge": "Successive CAG audits have found underutilised funds, delayed and faulty sewage-treatment plants, and, in recent state audits, only a handful of plants meeting pollution norms, even as the government advertises the mission as a triumph. A decade and tens of thousands of crore later, the core promise of a clean Ganga is largely unmet, and the gap between the spending, the claims and the state of the river has never been honestly owned.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Union Jal Shakti Ministry",
"r": "National Mission for Clean Ganga"
},
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister (flagship project)"
}
],
"pos": "The government says pollution has fallen, hundreds of sewage plants have been built or sanctioned, and wildlife such as river dolphins has returned.",
"alt": "Tie funding to measurable water-quality outcomes, build and actually maintain the treatment plants, and publish honest, independent monitoring of the river against every rupee spent.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "CAG audit: unspent funds, delays (PRS summary)",
"url": "https://prsindia.org/policy/report-summaries/audit-namami-gange",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260415041843/https://prsindia.org/policy/report-summaries/audit-namami-gange"
},
{
"label": "₹33,000 cr spent, river still polluted (Scroll)",
"url": "https://scroll.in/article/1056887/after-spending-rs-33000-crore-has-the-indian-government-finally-managed-to-clean-the-ganga",
"tier": 2
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 22500
}
},
{
"no": 51,
"id": "case-51",
"sk": 20180221,
"year": 2018,
"date": "Feb 2018 leak, still leaking in 2026",
"cat": "Exam integrity",
"sev": "red",
"title": "SSC. The exam that leaked, and kept leaking",
"stamp": "Chargesheets, no convictions",
"human": {
"v": "30.26 lakh registered for CGL 2017 and 15.4 lakh sat Tier-I; 1.5 lakh reached the paper that leaked; the final result came nearly three years after the notification",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Never costed. The bill is paid in working years lost per delayed cycle; the 2024 anti-cheating law caps a service provider's fine at ₹1 cr",
"est": true
},
"what": "Questions from the Combined Graduate Level Tier-II paper of 21 February 2018 circulated on social media during the exam window. Candidates occupied the pavement outside the Commission's Delhi office from 27 February until the SSC agreed to recommend a CBI enquiry. The CBI found both a pre-exam leak and remote-access software running on candidates' machines, but said it could not identify everyone who benefited.",
"dodge": "The Supreme Court declined to scrap the exam in March 2020, leaving it to a criminal court where no conviction has followed. No SSC or DoPT official was held responsible. The machinery still fails: in February 2026 the UP and Uttarakhand STFs found two laptops and a router in a 24-inch underground chamber in the server room of an SSC exam centre, used to solve papers remotely at ₹10 lakh a candidate. It was booked under state law, the BNS and the IT Act, not under the central anti-cheating Act the government passed in 2024.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ministry of Personnel (DoPT)",
"r": "Administrative control of the SSC; no official held responsible"
},
{
"n": "Staff Selection Commission",
"r": "Conducting body; recommended a CBI probe, announced no internal accountability"
}
],
"pos": "The government notes it ordered a CBI enquiry within a week of the protests, re-held the affected paper and accepted the Justice G.S. Singhvi committee's reform recommendations, and that the Supreme Court itself declined to find the exam conclusively tainted. The SSC says its 2025 vendor handled only logistics, not question-setting, and that affected candidates were re-tested.",
"alleg": "Protester claims that the 2025 exam vendor was blacklisted or linked to Vyapam are denied by the SSC and remain unverified.",
"alt": "A published CBI outcome with named accountability, a statutory deadline between exam and appointment, and the 2024 Act actually invoked when a centre is caught.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "SSC recommends CBI probe, 2018",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ssc-decides-to-recommend-cbi-probe-into-paper-leaks/article22925056.ece",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "SC refuses to scrap CGL 2017",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/paper-leak-case-sc-refuses-to-scrap-ssc-cgle-exam-of-2017-120030501427_1.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250419191151/https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/paper-leak-case-sc-refuses-to-scrap-ssc-cgle-exam-of-2017-120030501427_1.html"
},
{
"label": "Final result, three years late",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/jobs/ssc-cgl-2017-final-result-today-ssc-nic-in-6120823/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20191219083139/https://indianexpress.com/article/jobs/ssc-cgl-2017-final-result-today-ssc-nic-in-6120823/"
},
{
"label": "Aspirants protest new vendor, 2025",
"url": "https://theprint.in/india/faulty-systems-poor-infra-to-mistreatment-protesting-aspirants-allege-ssc-played-with-their-future/2709705/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250801065104/https://theprint.in/india/faulty-systems-poor-infra-to-mistreatment-protesting-aspirants-allege-ssc-played-with-their-future/2709705/"
}
]
},
{
"no": 52,
"id": "case-52",
"sk": 20250924,
"year": 2025,
"date": "Promised 2019. Four dead Sept 2025.",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Ladakh. A Sixth Schedule promise, then four dead",
"stamp": "NSA for the man who asked",
"human": {
"v": "Four killed in police firing in Leh on 24 September 2025, one a Kargil war veteran; injured reported between 50 and 160+. 170 days of preventive detention for Sonam Wangchuk",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Not a money case. The price is counted in a 35-day hunger strike, a 1,000 km march stopped at the Delhi border, and 97%+ of a Scheduled Tribe population still without the safeguards promised",
"est": false
},
"what": "Ladakh became a Union Territory without a legislature in August 2019. The ruling party's 2019 manifesto had listed Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh among its regional priorities, and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes recommended it the same year. The Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance have since asked for four things: Sixth Schedule safeguards, statehood, a Ladakh Public Service Commission, and separate Lok Sabha seats for Leh and Kargil.",
"dodge": "After at least ten rounds of talks between 2020 and March 2024, the Home Minister told the delegation that neither the Sixth Schedule nor statehood would be granted. Wangchuk and 130 others were detained at the Singhu border on 30 September 2024 while marching to Rajghat. When protests turned violent on 24 September 2025, four people were shot dead by police; two days later Wangchuk was detained under the National Security Act and held in Jodhpur Central Jail. The Home Ministry revoked the order after 170 days, two days before the Supreme Court was to hear his wife's habeas corpus petition. No officer has been publicly held responsible for the firing.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ministry of Home Affairs",
"r": "Ran the talks; revoked the NSA order two days before a Supreme Court hearing"
},
{
"n": "Amit Shah",
"r": "Union Home Minister; conveyed the refusal of Sixth Schedule status and statehood"
},
{
"n": "Ladakh UT administration",
"r": "Police firing that killed four; no accountability announced"
}
],
"pos": "The Home Ministry says it has kept a genuine dialogue running through a High-Powered Committee, and has offered Article 371 safeguards, strengthened hill councils and five new districts in place of the Sixth Schedule. On the September 2025 violence it holds that speeches by protest leaders incited the mob, and that repeated shutdowns damaged students, job aspirants, business and tourism in a strategically sensitive border region.",
"alleg": "The injury count from 24 September 2025 is contested, reported variously as 50, 80 and over 160.",
"alt": "A published magisterial inquiry into the firing with named responsibility, a dated answer on the Sixth Schedule, and preventive detention reserved for threats to national security rather than for hunger strikers.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Wangchuk's fasts and NSA detention",
"url": "https://frontline.thehindu.com/politics/sonam-wangchuk-hunger-strike/article71223988.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260715150014/https://frontline.thehindu.com/politics/sonam-wangchuk-hunger-strike/article71223988.ece"
},
{
"label": "Delhi Chalo march detentions, 2024",
"url": "https://theprint.in/india/anger-indefinite-fast-ladakhis-continue-protests-in-detention-after-their-delhi-chalo-march-stopped/2292738/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20241001183457/https://theprint.in/india/anger-indefinite-fast-ladakhis-continue-protests-in-detention-after-their-delhi-chalo-march-stopped/2292738/"
},
{
"label": "Sixth Schedule demand explained",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/why-ladakh-residents-hunger-strike-sixth-schedule-explained/article68012402.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250924150752/https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/why-ladakh-residents-hunger-strike-sixth-schedule-explained/article68012402.ece"
},
{
"label": "Talks with the Home Ministry, 2026",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ladakh/ladakh-leaders-to-meet-home-ministry-officials-tomorrow-sonam-wangchuk-part-of-delegation/article71007304.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260521182338/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ladakh/ladakh-leaders-to-meet-home-ministry-officials-tomorrow-sonam-wangchuk-part-of-delegation/article71007304.ece"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 4
}
},
{
"no": 53,
"id": "case-53",
"sk": 20250422,
"year": 2025,
"date": "22 Apr 2025",
"cat": "National security",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Pahalgam. 26 dead, a lapse admitted, nobody moved",
"stamp": "Responsibility taken, no resignation",
"human": {
"v": "26 killed, 25 Indians and one Nepali citizen, among them a local pony operator shot while trying to stop the gunmen; the injured count is reported inconsistently",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Never costed publicly. The attack broke a tourism-led recovery in the valley; no compensation figure has been published",
"est": true
},
"what": "On the afternoon of 22 April 2025, gunmen attacked tourists at Baisaran meadow, a walk-in-only site about five kilometres from Pahalgam. Two attackers who had mingled with the crowd herded people towards two more armed men, who segregated victims by religion before shooting them. Twenty-six people were killed.",
"dodge": "At an all-party meeting two days later, Home Ministry and IB officials briefed leaders on where the lapses had occurred, and said tourists had gone to Baisaran without police permission. Reporting a year on notes such permission had not historically been sought, and that the meadow carried no deployment at all. On 14 July 2025 the Lieutenant Governor said he took full responsibility for what was 'undoubtedly a security failure', and remained in office. The government has never published what the lapses were, what was fixed, or who was answerable. The only public documents are the NIA chargesheets, which address the terror conspiracy, not the security failure.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ministry of Home Affairs",
"r": "Security of J&K; lapses briefed to parties, never published"
},
{
"n": "Manoj Sinha",
"r": "Lieutenant Governor, J&K; accepted full responsibility, did not resign"
}
],
"pos": "The government's position is that this was a Pakistan-sponsored attack designed to create a communal divide and wreck Kashmir's tourism recovery, that it briefed all parties on the lapses within 48 hours, that the route had been opened by tour operators in April without permission on terrain reachable only after a two-hour walk, and that it delivered accountability through Operation Sindoor on 7 May 2025, the killing of the three attackers in July, and NIA chargesheets naming the Lashkar-e-Taiba leadership.",
"alleg": "A report that a CRPF company assigned to Baisaran was redeployed shortly before the attack is attributed to unnamed sources and remains unverified.",
"alt": "A published inquiry naming the decision that left a known tourist site unguarded, and a convention under which accepting full responsibility for 26 deaths carries a consequence.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Lapses briefed to all-party meeting",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pahalgam-terror-attack-tourists-taken-to-meadow-without-police-permission-government-informs-all-party-meeting/article69488066.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250722060251/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pahalgam-terror-attack-tourists-taken-to-meadow-without-police-permission-government-informs-all-party-meeting/article69488066.ece"
},
{
"label": "LG: 'undoubtedly a security failure'",
"url": "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/i-take-full-responsibility-jk-lg-manoj-sinha-calls-pahalgam-attack-a-security-failure/articleshow/122435616.cms",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250811103430/https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/i-take-full-responsibility-jk-lg-manoj-sinha-calls-pahalgam-attack-a-security-failure/articleshow/122435616.cms"
},
{
"label": "A year on, lapses still unspecified",
"url": "https://m.thewire.in/article/security/a-year-after-pahalgam-modi-govt-yet-to-clarify-lapses-that-led-to-attack",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260511210236/https://m.thewire.in/article/security/a-year-after-pahalgam-modi-govt-yet-to-clarify-lapses-that-led-to-attack"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 26
}
},
{
"no": 54,
"id": "case-54",
"sk": 20250807,
"year": 2025,
"date": "07 Aug 2025",
"cat": "Democratic institutions",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Vote chori. A claim, an ultimatum, and no audit",
"stamp": "Never independently checked",
"human": {
"v": "A contested claim over 1,00,250 votes in one Bengaluru segment, and over a net 40.81 lakh electors added in Maharashtra between two polls. Neither has been tested by any court, tribunal or auditor",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Not a money case. What is at stake is whether a serious, specific claim about the electoral roll can be examined at all",
"est": false
},
"what": "On 7 August 2025 the Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, alleged at a press conference that 1,00,250 votes had been stolen in the Mahadevapura segment of Bangalore Central, breaking the figure into duplicate voters, invalid addresses, bulk registrations at single addresses, invalid photographs and misuse of Form 6. The Election Commission called the analysis misleading and false. The Chief Electoral Officers of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Haryana asked him to sign a declaration under Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules naming the electors concerned. He refused, saying his word in public could be taken as an oath. On 17 August the Chief Election Commissioner gave him seven days to file an affidavit or apologise to the nation.",
"dodge": "Not one of the five sub-figures has been examined by any independent body. The Commission declined to release machine-readable electoral rolls or polling-station CCTV footage that could settle the question, citing voter privacy. It has not explained why a ruling-party MP who made comparable roll-discrepancy claims about Rae Bareli was never asked for an affidavit. The constitutional expert P.D.T. Achary has said Rule 20(3)(b) governs claims and objections in the window after a draft roll is published and cannot apply after an election, which would mean the only route the Commission offered does not exist. The allegation and the rebuttal both remain untested, which serves whoever is wrong.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Election Commission of India",
"r": "Rejected the claim; withheld machine-readable rolls and CCTV footage"
},
{
"n": "Gyanesh Kumar",
"r": "Chief Election Commissioner; set a seven-day affidavit-or-apologise ultimatum"
}
],
"pos": "The Commission's position is that the allegations are false and baseless, that the only lawful route is a signed declaration naming specific electors so that proceedings can begin, and that a false declaration is itself punishable. It notes no election petition was filed within the statutory 45-day window and no evidenced objection was filed with the Maharashtra CEO, that the Maharashtra additions reflect routine summary revision and youth enrolment with figures already supplied to the Congress by letter in December 2024, that disclosure of who voted is barred by the Conduct of Election Rules, and that an exercise involving more than a crore staff cannot be quietly rigged. It asks whether 1.5 lakh voters should be served notice without evidence.",
"alleg": "That votes were stolen, that the Commission colluded with any party, or that evidence was destroyed are allegations by the Leader of the Opposition and remain unproven. The Commission denies them in full and no court has made any such finding. The Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Special Intensive Revision of rolls in May 2026.",
"alt": "Machine-readable rolls published with personal data redacted, an independent audit of one contested segment to settle the method, and a single evidentiary standard applied to every party that alleges a discrepancy.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Mahadevapura claims and the ECI reply",
"url": "https://www.outlookindia.com/national/rahul-accuses-election-commission-of-vote-chori-in-2024-lok-sabha-polls-ec-says-misleading",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260207074447/https://www.outlookindia.com/national/rahul-accuses-election-commission-of-vote-chori-in-2024-lok-sabha-polls-ec-says-misleading"
},
{
"label": "CEC: affidavit in seven days, or apologise",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/file-affidavit-in-seven-days-or-apologise-eci-ultimatum-on-rahul-gandhis-karnataka-vote-theft-allegations/article69944380.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260219180744/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/file-affidavit-in-seven-days-or-apologise-eci-ultimatum-on-rahul-gandhis-karnataka-vote-theft-allegations/article69944380.ece"
},
{
"label": "SC orders 65 lakh deleted names published",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/bihar-sir-row-sc-directs-eci-to-publish-details-of-65-lakh-deleted-voters-with-reasons-10189079/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260221055557/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/bihar-sir-row-sc-directs-eci-to-publish-details-of-65-lakh-deleted-voters-with-reasons-10189079/"
},
{
"label": "SC upholds validity of SIR, May 2026",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/legal-news/supreme-court-upholds-eci-bihar-electoral-roll-revision-10709988/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260620091657/https://indianexpress.com/article/legal-news/supreme-court-upholds-eci-bihar-electoral-roll-revision-10709988/"
}
]
},
{
"no": 55,
"id": "case-55",
"sk": 20020228,
"year": 2002,
"date": "Feb to Mar 2002",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Gujarat 2002. What the courts found, and what they did not",
"stamp": "No political resignation",
"human": {
"v": "1,044 killed on the official count given to Parliament — 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus — with 223 missing, 2,548 injured, 919 women widowed and 606 children orphaned. 59 died in the Godhra train fire that preceded it",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "₹204.62 cr spent by the state on relief and rehabilitation; ₹1.5 lakh ex gratia for each person killed",
"est": false
},
"what": "Fifty-nine people died when coaches of the Sabarmati Express were set alight at Godhra on 27 February 2002. Communal violence followed across Gujarat over the following weeks. The official toll, given to the Rajya Sabha in May 2005, was 1,044 dead.",
"dodge": "In July 2002 the National Human Rights Commission found a 'comprehensive failure on the part of the State Government to control the persistent violation of the rights to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the people of that State', and recommended five cases be transferred to the CBI. The state government declined, and without its request the Centre said the CBI could not take over. The Supreme Court twice found a fair trial impossible in Gujarat and moved cases out of the state: nine of the twenty-one Best Bakery accused were convicted only on retrial in Mumbai, after all had been acquitted at home. Convictions followed at Sardarpura, Ode, Naroda Patiya and Gulberg Society, and many did not survive appeal. In 2024 the Supreme Court quashed Gujarat's remission of the eleven Bilkis Bano convicts, holding the state was not the competent government and had 'acted in tandem and was complicit' with them. Across twenty-four years, no minister resigned.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Gujarat state government (2002)",
"r": "NHRC found comprehensive failure to control the violence; declined the CBI transfer"
},
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Chief Minister; SIT found no prosecutable evidence, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2022"
}
],
"pos": "The state's position, substantially accepted by the Supreme Court in June 2022, is that a mob attacked the train at Godhra and that the violence which followed was spontaneous rather than state-sponsored, that the administration moved as fast as an inadequate police force allowed and sought central forces and the Army promptly, and that the then Chief Minister made repeated public appeals for peace. The Court's 452-page judgment dismissing Zakia Jafri's appeal held there was no material worth the name to suspect a pre-planned conspiracy at the highest level, that inaction by some officials could not by itself establish a meeting of minds, that no fault could be found with the SIT's approach, and that the testimony of three officials was 'replete with falsehood'.",
"alleg": "Zakia Jafri's allegation of a larger conspiracy involving the then Chief Minister and 63 officials was rejected by the SIT in 2012, a magistrate in 2013, the Gujarat High Court in 2017 and the Supreme Court in 2022. Death tolls above the official 1,044 are estimates by rights organisations and are not court-established. Maya Kodnani, convicted in 2012, was acquitted by the Gujarat High Court in 2018.",
"alt": "A state that accepts a national human rights body's recommendation to move investigations out of its own hands, trials that need not be transferred to another state to be fair, and political responsibility that does not wait on a criminal conviction.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Official toll: 790 Muslims, 254 Hindus",
"url": "https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4536199.stm",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260509154939/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4536199.stm"
},
{
"label": "NHRC report on Gujarat, July 2002",
"url": "https://cjp.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/NHRC-Report-July-2002.pdf",
"tier": 3,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240722110705/https://cjp.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/NHRC-Report-July-2002.pdf"
},
{
"label": "SC rejects Zakia Jafri's appeal, 2022",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/2002-gujarat-riots-supreme-court-rejects-zakia-jafris-charges-against-narendra-modi-60-officials/article65560012.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251205231243/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/2002-gujarat-riots-supreme-court-rejects-zakia-jafris-charges-against-narendra-modi-60-officials/article65560012.ece"
},
{
"label": "Gulberg: 24 convicted, 36 acquitted",
"url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36423413",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260721085238/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36423413"
},
{
"label": "Bilkis Bano remission quashed, 2024",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/bilkis-bano-case-supreme-court-quashes-gujarats-premature-release-of-convicts/article67718561.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250816201929/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/bilkis-bano-case-supreme-court-quashes-gujarats-premature-release-of-convicts/article67718561.ece"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 204.62,
"deaths": 1044
}
},
{
"no": 56,
"id": "case-56",
"sk": 20200506,
"year": 2020,
"date": "Duty peak 06 May 2020",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Fuel excise. The crude crash the consumer never saw",
"stamp": "Cut from the states' share",
"human": {
"v": "Every household buying fuel through the pandemic, and every state whose share shrank as the levy moved into cesses it does not receive",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "₹24.85 lakh cr of central excise from petroleum, 2014-15 to 2023-24. Duty on petrol went from ₹9.48 to ₹32.98 a litre, diesel from ₹3.56 to ₹31.83. Of ₹27.90 on petrol in 2022, only ₹1.40 was shareable with states",
"est": false
},
"what": "The government told Parliament it raised excise duty on ten occasions between November 2014 and January 2016 'to take away gains arising from a fall in international oil prices', and again by ₹13 a litre on petrol and ₹16 on diesel between March and May 2020 'when international oil prices came crashing after the onset of the pandemic'. Duty peaked at ₹32.98 on petrol on 6 May 2020. Excise from the petroleum sector jumped from ₹2.23 lakh crore in 2019-20 to ₹3.73 lakh crore in 2020-21.",
"dodge": "Almost none of it is shared. The Finance Minister confirmed in 2022 that of ₹27.90 a litre of central tax on petrol, only ₹1.40 was basic excise duty shareable with states, and that both the November 2021 and May 2022 cuts were made entirely in the non-shareable Road and Infrastructure Cess. The CAG has repeatedly found the cess money is not reaching the funds it was levied for: ₹10,157 crore of Road and Infrastructure Cess in 2018-19 'was neither transferred to the related Reserve Fund nor utilised for the purpose for which the cess was collected', and a separate ₹10,250 crore was moved out by a journal entry after the year closed, which the CAG said was done 'primarily for the purpose of artificially inflating revenue receipts of the year', had 'the effect of understating deficit', put money to purposes 'contrary to the will of the Parliament', and merited investigation of the officials who authorised it. The Ministry's defence was called untenable.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ministry of Finance",
"r": "Set duty and cess structure; CAG defence on cess accounting held untenable"
},
{
"n": "Nirmala Sitharaman",
"r": "Union Finance Minister; confirmed cuts were made in the non-shareable cess"
}
],
"pos": "The government's position is that excise is a legitimate policy instrument calibrated as required, that it cut duty by ₹13 a litre on petrol and ₹16 on diesel across November 2021 and May 2022 and passed the relief fully to consumers, that state finances were unaffected because the cuts came from a cess states never received, and that large subsidy outlays must be set against the revenue. On the accounting, it argued the transfer followed the redesignation of the Central Road Fund and had precedent.",
"alleg": "The CAG's language is 'not transferred' and 'short-credited', not diverted or misappropriated. The CAG also notes cess shortfalls date back to levies imposed in 1974 and therefore span multiple governments. Calling the 2020 increases a windfall is fair comment on figures the government itself gave Parliament; calling it profiteering is opinion.",
"alt": "Cess proceeds credited to the funds they were raised for, an honest split between shareable duty and cess, and duty that falls when crude falls.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "2014 rates and the 2020 peak, in Parliament",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/excise-duty-on-petrol-was-rs-9-48-ltr-diesel-rs-3-56-in-2014-minister-122080100962_1.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260605233751/https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/excise-duty-on-petrol-was-rs-9-48-ltr-diesel-rs-3-56-in-2014-minister-122080100962_1.html"
},
{
"label": "PPAC: petroleum receipts to the exchequer",
"url": "https://ppac.gov.in/prices/contribution-to-central-and-state-exchequer",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260419205706/https://ppac.gov.in/prices/contribution-to-central-and-state-exchequer"
},
{
"label": "CAG on the ₹10,250 cr cess accounting",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/cag-moots-probe-over-cess-accounting-dodge/article61702167.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20241009002432/https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/cag-moots-probe-over-cess-accounting-dodge/article61702167.ece"
},
{
"label": "CAG: ₹3.69 lakh cr of cess not transferred",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/centre-has-not-transferred-369-lakh-crore-of-cess-collections-to-the-designated-funds-cag-finds/article69924061.ece",
"tier": 2
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 2484913
}
},
{
"no": 57,
"id": "case-57",
"sk": 20230301,
"year": 2023,
"date": "Price peak 01 Mar 2023",
"cat": "Consumer harm",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "The cylinder. Subsidy withdrawn, refills never came",
"stamp": "No answer for the empty cylinders",
"human": {
"v": "10.33 crore Ujjwala connections issued, but a CAG audit found average consumption of 3.21 refills a year, and 17.61% of beneficiaries — about 56 lakh households — never returned for a second refill at all",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Domestic LPG subsidy fell from ₹46,458 cr in 2013-14 to ₹1,811 cr in 2021-22. The Delhi cylinder went from ₹414 subsidised in Jan 2014 to a ₹1,103 market peak in Mar 2023",
"est": false
},
"what": "A connection is not a kitchen. Ujjwala put a cylinder in more than ten crore homes, but the CAG's 2019 audit found beneficiaries were buying 3.21 refills a year against the three to four the scheme assumed, and that consumption was falling, not rising. Nearly 56 lakh households never bought a second cylinder. In Chhattisgarh the average was 1.61. Meanwhile the general subsidy was wound down until transfers effectively stopped in mid-2020, and the market price nearly tripled from the 2014 subsidised rate.",
"dodge": "The audit also found that poor refill uptake among 92 lakh loanee consumers blocked recovery of ₹1,234.71 crore in outstanding loans, and recorded 3.44 lakh instances of oil companies issuing between 2 and 20 refills in a single day to households holding one cylinder. No official has answered for a scheme measured in connections issued rather than in cooking fuel actually burned, and the headline count kept being announced while the refill data went unmentioned.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas",
"r": "Owns Ujjwala and LPG pricing; reports connections, not sustained use"
}
],
"pos": "The government's position is that India imports over 60% of its LPG so prices track international markets, that it shielded consumers by letting oil companies absorb losses and compensating them ₹22,000 crore, and that it passed on only an 89.7% price rise against a 235% rise in Saudi contract prices. It says Ujjwala took coverage from 62% to near-saturation, that a ₹300-a-cylinder targeted subsidy for up to nine refills holds the effective price near ₹35 a kg, and that per-capita refill consumption has since risen from 3.01 in 2019-20 to 4.34 annualised in 2024-25.",
"alleg": "The common comparison of ₹414 in 2014 against about ₹1,100 today is not like-for-like: the first is a subsidised quota price under a scheme that no longer exists, the second an unsubsidised market price.",
"alt": "A scheme audited on refills rather than connections, published per-household consumption data, and a subsidy that survives contact with the price it was meant to offset.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "RS Q1264: ₹414 in 2014 against ₹1,103",
"url": "https://sansad.in/getFile/annex/260/AU1264.pdf?source=pqars",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250724005725/https://sansad.in/getFile/annex/260/AU1264.pdf?source=pqars"
},
{
"label": "LS Q3711: LPG prices and subsidy, 2013-22",
"url": "https://sansad.in/getFile/loksabhaquestions/annex/1711/AU3711.pdf?source=pqals",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240714073403/https://sansad.in/getFile/loksabhaquestions/annex/1711/AU3711.pdf?source=pqals"
},
{
"label": "CAG 2019 audit of Ujjwala refills",
"url": "https://cag.gov.in/uploads/download_audit_report/2019/Chapter_6_Transition_of_BPL_households_to_LPG_of_Report_No_14_of_2019_Performance_Audit_of_Pradhan_Mantri_Ujjwala_Yojana_Ministry_of_Petroleum_and_Natural_Gas.pdf",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240615221459/https://cag.gov.in/uploads/download_audit_report/2019/Chapter_6_Transition_of_BPL_households_to_LPG_of_Report_No_14_of_2019_Performance_Audit_of_Pradhan_Mantri_Ujjwala_Yojana_Ministry_of_Petroleum_and_Natural_Gas.pdf"
},
{
"label": "PIB: 10.33 crore Ujjwala connections",
"url": "https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?lang=1&PRID=2198768®=3",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260210001340/https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2198768®=3&lang=1"
}
]
},
{
"no": 58,
"id": "case-58",
"sk": 20260131,
"year": 2026,
"date": "NCAP target year missed, 2026",
"cat": "Environment",
"sev": "red",
"title": "The air. A million dead a year, and a target quietly missed",
"stamp": "Officials charged, no minister",
"human": {
"v": "2.1 million deaths in India attributed to air pollution in 2021, including 169,400 children under five. The 2019 figure was 1.67 million, 17.8% of all deaths that year",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "US$36.8 bn lost in 2019, about 1.36% of GDP — roughly ₹2.6 lakh cr in that year alone",
"est": true
},
"what": "The National Clean Air Programme set out to cut PM10 by 20 to 30% by 2024-25, then revised the goal to up to 40% by 2025-26. By CREA's January 2026 assessment, only 23 of the 130 cities covered had reached the revised target and most remain above national standards. Delhi was ranked the world's most polluted capital for an eighth consecutive year at 82.2 µg/m³ of PM2.5, more than sixteen times the WHO guideline and above India's own weaker 40 µg/m³ standard.",
"dodge": "The Supreme Court has been unusually blunt. In September 2024 it told the Commission for Air Quality Management that 'like pollution, your directions are in the air' and found total non-compliance with the Act. In November 2024 it held that the right to live in a pollution-free environment is a fundamental right under Article 21, found a serious lapse by the Delhi government and police on enforcement, and directed prosecution under Section 14 of the CAQM Act, which carries up to five years in prison. Complaints followed against 111 officials of Punjab and Haryana. Not one minister, state or Union, has resigned or been removed, and the target year passed without an accounting.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change",
"r": "Owns NCAP; revised target missed, no accounting published"
},
{
"n": "Commission for Air Quality Management",
"r": "Statutory powers since 2021; found in total non-compliance by the Supreme Court"
}
],
"pos": "The government's position is that air pollution is a diffuse, trans-boundary problem spanning crop residue burning, construction, industry, vehicles and winter meteorology that no single authority controls, which is precisely why it created the CAQM in 2021 as a statutory body with penal powers across four states. It points to city-specific action plans under NCAP, a large expansion of monitoring, and real reductions in a number of cities as evidence that a structural problem is being addressed.",
"alleg": "The rupee figure is a conversion of the Lancet's dollar estimate for 2019 and is approximate. The IQAir ranking is reported from its 2025 report rather than read from the primary source.",
"alt": "A target with a named owner and a published annual reckoning, enforcement that reaches the people who set policy rather than only district officials, and a national standard that matches the WHO guideline.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Lancet Planetary Health: GBD 2019 India",
"url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7805008/",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260219034326/https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7805008/"
},
{
"label": "State of Global Air 2024 (HEI and UNICEF)",
"url": "https://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/soga-2024-report.pdf",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251010024634/https://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/soga-2024-report.pdf"
},
{
"label": "CREA: NCAP progress report, Jan 2026",
"url": "https://energyandcleanair.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/CREA_Tracing-the-Hazy-Air-2026_-Progress-Report-on-National-Clean-Air-Programme-NCAP.pdf",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "SC on CAQM and Section 14 prosecution",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/what-can-caqm-do-to-improve-delhi-air/article68903280.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20241225042331/https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/what-can-caqm-do-to-improve-delhi-air/article68903280.ece"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 259000,
"deaths": 2100000
}
},
{
"no": 59,
"id": "case-59",
"sk": 20150928,
"year": 2015,
"date": "Sept 2015 onward",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Cow protection. 44 dead, and a record export year",
"stamp": "The state stopped counting",
"human": {
"v": "At least 44 people killed and around 280 injured in cow-related violence between May 2015 and December 2018, 36 of the dead Muslim, across more than 100 incidents in 20 states. There is no official count after 2017",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "₹34,392 cr of buffalo meat exported in 2024-25 — 79.4% of India's entire animal-product export basket — while cow slaughter stays banned across most states",
"est": false
},
"what": "Cow slaughter is prohibited in most states and enforced in practice by self-appointed vigilantes, while buffalo meat remains one of India's largest agricultural exports. Human Rights Watch documented at least 44 killings between May 2015 and December 2018, and found police stalling investigations or joining in cover-ups.",
"dodge": "The named cases mostly did not end in accountability. More than a decade after Mohammad Akhlaq was killed at Dadri in September 2015 there has been no conviction; all fourteen surviving accused are on bail, and in October 2025 the state applied to withdraw the prosecution entirely, a plea a fast-track court rejected that December. All six adult accused in Pehlu Khan's killing were acquitted in 2019, the court finding serious shortcomings and gross negligence in the police investigation and ruling the video inadmissible. In Rakbar Khan's case four men were convicted in 2023, but of culpable homicide rather than murder, and given seven years. Eleven men convicted for killing Alimuddin Ansari were bailed on appeal in 2019, and a Union minister had already garlanded eight of them at his residence in July 2018, calling it honouring due process. Then the counting stopped: the NCRB gathered data on mob lynching and cow vigilantism for 2017, never published it, and discontinued collection on the ground that the crimes were not defined.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ministry of Home Affairs",
"r": "Discontinued NCRB collection of lynching and cow-vigilantism data"
},
{
"n": "Jayant Sinha",
"r": "Union Minister of State; garlanded eight men convicted of a lynching, then on bail"
},
{
"n": "National Crime Records Bureau",
"r": "Collected 2017 data on mob lynching, never published it"
}
],
"pos": "The government draws a legal distinction between cow slaughter, banned by states under their own legislative competence and a constitutional directive, and buffalo meat, a lawful regulated export, and so sees no contradiction between the two. On lynchings it says vigilantism is an ordinary crime for state police to prosecute under existing law, that the Prime Minister has publicly condemned cow vigilantism, and that a Group of Ministers was constituted. On data it maintains the NCRB can only publish under heads defined in statute, and mob lynching was not one.",
"alleg": "The figure of 44 is a documented floor for May 2015 to December 2018, not a total; because official collection stopped, no comparable count exists for the years since. India's world ranking as a buffalo-meat exporter is stated inconsistently by the government itself, tenth on APEDA's own page and third by volume in a 2025 parliamentary answer.",
"alt": "A statutory definition of lynching so the crime can be counted, published national data, and ministers who do not honour men convicted of killing.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "HRW: Violent Cow Protection in India",
"url": "https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/02/19/violent-cow-protection-india/vigilante-groups-attack-minorities",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Pehlu Khan: all six accused acquitted",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pehlu-khan-lynching-case-all-six-accused-acquitted-by-rajasthan-court/article61584106.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250324105434/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pehlu-khan-lynching-case-all-six-accused-acquitted-by-rajasthan-court/article61584106.ece"
},
{
"label": "Union minister fetes convicted lynchers",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/after-feting-jharkhand-men-convicted-of-lynching-union-minister-jayant-sinha-talks-of-due-process-5250451/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20230726102817/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/after-feting-jharkhand-men-convicted-of-lynching-union-minister-jayant-sinha-talks-of-due-process-5250451/"
},
{
"label": "No data on mob lynching, MHA tells LS",
"url": "https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/no-data-on-mob-lynching-mha-tells-lok-sabha/article38006653.ece",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240303090658/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/no-data-on-mob-lynching-mha-tells-lok-sabha/article38006653.ece"
},
{
"label": "APEDA: buffalo meat export data",
"url": "https://www.apeda.gov.in/BuffaloMeat",
"tier": 1,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260617070802/https://apeda.gov.in/BuffaloMeat"
}
],
"estimates": {
"deaths": 44
}
},
{
"no": 60,
"id": "case-60",
"sk": 20140526,
"year": 2014,
"date": "May 2014 onward",
"cat": "Democratic institutions",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Twelve years, and not one press conference",
"stamp": "Never took the questions",
"human": {
"v": "Zero open news conferences in India across twelve years as Prime Minister, against 64 one-to-one interviews given between January and late May 2024 alone",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Not a money case. India went from 140th of 180 on the RSF press freedom index in 2014 to 157th in 2026, inside the band RSF calls 'very serious'",
"est": false
},
"what": "Narendra Modi has not held a single open news conference in India since taking office in May 2014. The nearest exception came five days before the 2019 Lok Sabha results, when he made a brief statement at a joint appearance and referred every question to the then party president. When a journalist tried to put a follow-up to him directly, he was told the Prime Minister need not respond to queries on everything.",
"dodge": "The pattern holds abroad. In Oslo on 18 May 2026 a Norwegian journalist asked why he would not take questions from 'the freest press in the world'; he left without answering. In July 2026 the Editors Guild of India called the Foreign Ministry's explanation — that he prefers direct contact with a largely rural electorate — 'deeply flawed', adding that scripted one-way communication on social media is not a substitute for public interaction with independent media. Interviews are granted in volume, 64 in under five months of 2024. What is avoided is the unscripted follow-up, and with it the possibility of being asked the same question twice.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Narendra Modi",
"r": "Prime Minister; no open news conference in India since May 2014"
},
{
"n": "Ministry of External Affairs",
"r": "Defended the absence as a preference for direct contact with voters"
}
],
"pos": "The Prime Minister's stated position is that he declines to follow a culture of managing the media, communicating instead directly with citizens through Mann Ki Baat, rallies and social media, and that he remains answerable to Parliament. The Foreign Ministry adds that as a quintessentially Indian politician with a largely rural electorate, he prefers unmediated contact over intermediaries.",
"alleg": "The count of zero rests on consistent reporting rather than an official record, since no government tally is published. RSF changed its index methodology in 2022, so the 2014 and 2026 ranks are not a strict like-for-like comparison and are cited here as a trend rather than a measurement.",
"alt": "One open news conference a year, questions not submitted in advance, and follow-ups allowed.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Modi avoids the media in Norway, 2026",
"url": "https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/20/modi-avoids-norway-media-how-that-led-to-storm-over-indias-press-freedom",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260721125230/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/20/modi-avoids-norway-media-how-that-led-to-storm-over-indias-press-freedom"
},
{
"label": "A decade without press conferences",
"url": "https://thediplomat.com/2024/05/narendra-modis-decade-without-press-conferences/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260530152138/https://thediplomat.com/2024/05/narendra-modis-decade-without-press-conferences/"
},
{
"label": "Editors Guild rejects the MEA defence",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/editors-guild-of-india-slams-mea-pm-modi-press-conferences-10789306/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260720034937/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/editors-guild-of-india-slams-mea-pm-modi-press-conferences-10789306/"
},
{
"label": "RSF 2014 index: India 140th of 180",
"url": "https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2014",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260524173105/https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2014"
}
]
},
{
"no": 61,
"id": "case-61",
"sk": 20190128,
"year": 2019,
"date": "Promise 2013. Survey withheld Jan 2019.",
"cat": "Data denial",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "The jobs promise, and the survey they sat on",
"stamp": "Two statisticians resigned",
"human": {
"v": "Unemployment at 6.1% in 2017-18, the highest since 1972-73, against 2.2% in 2011-12. Joblessness among rural men aged 15-29 tripled to 17.4%; urban women reached 27.2%",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Never costed. Labour force participation among those over 15 fell from 55.9% to 49.8% — people leaving the workforce rather than finding work inside it",
"est": false
},
"what": "At a rally in Agra in November 2013 Modi promised one crore jobs. The BJP's 2014 manifesto carried no numerical jobs target at all. What is not in dispute is the outcome: the Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2017-18 put unemployment at 6.1%, a forty-five-year high.",
"dodge": "The survey was not published. On 28 January 2019 the acting chairman of the National Statistical Commission, P.C. Mohanan, and its member J.V. Meenakshi resigned over the non-release of that report and the lack of consultation on the GDP back-series. It was released only after the 2019 election was over. Asked about joblessness in January 2018, the Prime Minister offered that someone selling pakodas outside an office for ₹200 a day was employed, even if the earning 'will never come into any books'. Success is now measured by EPFO payroll additions and the RBI's KLEMS series, neither of which counts new jobs: net EPFO figures are first-time joiners minus exits plus rejoiners, which measures formalisation and churn.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation",
"r": "Withheld the PLFS report until after the 2019 election"
},
{
"n": "Ministry of Labour and Employment",
"r": "Cites EPFO and KLEMS series as evidence of job creation"
}
],
"pos": "The government argues that headline unemployment understates work in a largely informal economy where a self-employed vendor is genuinely employed, and points to Mudra loans, PMEGP, job fairs and the National Career Service as delivery channels. On measurement it cites the RBI's KLEMS database, which it reads as 7.8 crore jobs created between 2021 and 2024, and 6.2 crore net EPFO additions since 2017, as evidence of both job creation and rising formalisation.",
"alleg": "No primary source records a promise of two crore jobs a year. The verified record is one crore jobs in total, promised at Agra in November 2013, and a 2014 manifesto with no numerical target. The annual formulation belongs to the opposition — Manmohan Singh in 2018, Mallikarjun Kharge in 2022 — and is not quoted here as the government's own words.",
"alt": "Statistical releases on a published calendar no ministry can hold, a jobs metric that counts jobs rather than payroll transitions, and a statistical commission whose members need not resign to be heard.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Agra 2013: 'one crore jobs' promised",
"url": "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/one-crore-jobs-if-bjp-comes-to-power-narendra-modi/articleshow/26165012.cms",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250816191632/https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/one-crore-jobs-if-bjp-comes-to-power-narendra-modi/articleshow/26165012.cms"
},
{
"label": "PLFS: 6.1%, a 45-year high",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/unemployment-rate-at-five-decade-high-of-6-1-in-2017-18-nsso-survey-119013100053_1.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260303114648/https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/unemployment-rate-at-five-decade-high-of-6-1-in-2017-18-nsso-survey-119013100053_1.html"
},
{
"label": "The pakoda remark, and the row",
"url": "https://scroll.in/latest/866754/if-selling-pakodas-is-a-job-so-is-begging-p-chidambarams-jibe-sparks-twitter-war-with-bjp",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20190916151743/https://scroll.in/latest/866754/if-selling-pakodas-is-a-job-so-is-begging-p-chidambarams-jibe-sparks-twitter-war-with-bjp"
},
{
"label": "Why EPFO job claims mislead",
"url": "https://m.thewire.in/article/economy/govt-claims-of-job-creation-based-on-epfo-enrolment-data-are-misleading-heres-why",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240928161023/https://m.thewire.in/article/economy/govt-claims-of-job-creation-based-on-epfo-enrolment-data-are-misleading-heres-why"
}
],
"resignations": [
{
"n": "Two statisticians",
"office": "National Statistical Commission members",
"when": "Jan 2019",
"year": 2019,
"level": "official"
}
]
},
{
"no": 62,
"id": "case-62",
"sk": 20150625,
"year": 2015,
"date": "Launched 25 Jun 2015",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "100 smart cities. One finished on time",
"stamp": "Deadline moved five times",
"human": {
"v": "100 cities enrolled. A parliamentary panel found Madurai alone had completed all its projects by December 2023, while 14 cities stood at or below half — Gangtok at 16%, Shillong 24%, Itanagar 31%",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "₹48,000 cr of central outlay against ₹1.64 lakh cr of projects taken up. ₹11,775 cr went on command and control centres, the one item all 100 cities managed to finish",
"est": false
},
"what": "Launched on 25 June 2015 for 100 cities, each given five years from the date of its selection. The mission took up 8,064 projects worth ₹1.64 lakh crore against a central outlay of ₹48,000 crore.",
"dodge": "The deadline moved from 2019-20 to June 2023, then June 2024, then March 2025, then June 2025, then December 2025. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs found in February 2024 that 400 projects worth ₹22,814 crore would miss even that, and that the ministry's answer was that states would have to finish them at their own cost — prompting the committee to observe that the ministry's role 'should not be confined to transfer of their share'. Only 6% of projects were financed through public-private partnership against a targeted 21%, which is the mission's financing model failing rather than lagging. Nearly a year after official closure, 280 projects worth ₹8,652 crore were still under implementation, and the unfinished work is the expensive work: ₹29 crore average for what is still running against ₹20.1 crore for what is done.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs",
"r": "Owns the mission; five deadline extensions, unfinished projects passed to states"
}
],
"pos": "The ministry's position is that the mission was never meant to transform whole cities: it was deliberately an area-based development model of retrofitting, redevelopment and greenfield work inside a defined area, plus one pan-city digital initiative, intended to create a replicable template. On that yardstick it reports 97% project completion, 99% of the central share claimed and 98% of released funds used as of March 2026, and cites a NITI Aayog evaluation of September 2025 finding the mission demonstrated strong relevance to India's urban needs.",
"alleg": "The ₹48,000 cr is the Union allocation alone; the ₹1.64 lakh cr is total project value including state, convergence and private funding. The widely repeated claim that only 18 of 100 cities declared full completion is unverified and is not relied on here.",
"alt": "Deadlines that are met or explained, a published city-by-city completion table, and a financing model tested somewhere before 100 cities are enrolled in it.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "400 projects to miss the deadline",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/400-smart-city-mission-projects-to-miss-june-30-deadline-states-must-take-over-panel-told-9152108/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240523185757/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/400-smart-city-mission-projects-to-miss-june-30-deadline-states-must-take-over-panel-told-9152108/"
},
{
"label": "Mission set to end 31 March 2025",
"url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/smart-cities-set-to-end-march-31-but-7-projects-likely-to-go-on-9888105/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250828082608/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/smart-cities-set-to-end-march-31-but-7-projects-likely-to-go-on-9888105/"
},
{
"label": "Rajya Sabha reply: status to Mar 2026",
"url": "https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/india/nation-was-sold-a-half-baked-scheme-rahul-slams-govt-on-smart-cities-mission/",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260509225918/https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/india/nation-was-sold-a-half-baked-scheme-rahul-slams-govt-on-smart-cities-mission/"
},
{
"label": "A decade on, the mission still lags",
"url": "https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/economy/a-decade-on-smart-cities-mission-struggles-to-cross-the-finish-line-13727720.html",
"tier": 2,
"archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20251216100240/https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/economy/a-decade-on-smart-cities-mission-struggles-to-cross-the-finish-line-13727720.html"
}
],
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 48000
}
},
{
"no": 63,
"id": "case-63",
"sk": 20010313,
"year": 2001,
"date": "13 Mar 2001 (tapes aired)",
"cat": "National security",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Operation West End. Cash on camera, a party president convicted",
"stamp": "One conviction. The system unchanged.",
"human": {
"v": "Public trust in defence procurement, filmed being sold across a desk",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A fictitious arms company secured meetings, and money changed hands on tape",
"est": false
},
"what": "Reporters posing as arms dealers for a fictitious London firm, West End International, spent months offering bribes to secure an army contract for thermal imagers that did not exist. The tapes, aired in March 2001, showed BJP president Bangaru Laxman accepting one lakh rupees at the party office. Defence Minister George Fernandes resigned; Samata Party president Jaya Jaitly was also implicated.",
"timeline": [
{
"sk": 20010313,
"on": "13 Mar 2001",
"kind": "incident",
"what": "Tapes from a months-long sting are aired. The BJP president is shown accepting one lakh rupees at the party office; the Defence Minister's party is shown taking money for an army contract that did not exist."
},
{
"sk": 20010315,
"on": "Mar 2001",
"kind": "answer",
"what": "Bangaru Laxman resigns as BJP president. George Fernandes resigns as Defence Minister."
},
{
"sk": 20010401,
"on": "2001",
"kind": "promise",
"what": "A commission of inquiry is appointed to examine the affair. It is later reconstituted after its chairman steps down."
},
{
"sk": 20011001,
"on": "2001",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "Fernandes returns to the cabinet in under a year."
},
{
"sk": 20040101,
"on": "2004",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "The Phukan Commission gives Fernandes a clean chit. The succeeding government then disowns the report."
},
{
"sk": 20120401,
"on": "Apr 2012",
"kind": "action",
"what": "Bangaru Laxman is convicted, eleven years after the broadcast, and sentenced to four years."
}
],
"dodge": "Laxman was convicted only in April 2012, eleven years later, and sentenced to four years. Fernandes returned to the cabinet in under a year. The Phukan Commission set up to examine the affair gave him a clean chit, its report was then disowned by the succeeding government, and the judge himself later disputed how his findings were being characterised. The procurement system the sting exposed was not rebuilt.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Bangaru Laxman",
"r": "BJP president; convicted 2012, sentenced to four years"
},
{
"n": "George Fernandes",
"r": "Defence Minister; resigned March 2001, returned to cabinet"
},
{
"n": "Jaya Jaitly",
"r": "Samata Party president; convicted 2020"
}
],
"pos": "The government argued the sting was entrapment and questioned the methods and funding of the journalists involved, and Fernandes maintained he had no part in any transaction.",
"alleg": "The tapes established that money was taken. Wider claims that the ruling coalition systematically sold defence contracts were never proven in court, and several of those named were cleared.",
"alt": "A defence procurement audit published in full, a time-bound trial rather than an eleven-year one, and a commission whose findings the next government was willing to stand behind.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "ThePrint: Operation West End, the 2001 sting explained",
"url": "https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/operation-west-end-the-2001-tehelka-sting-that-led-to-jaya-jaitlys-conviction/469214/",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: HC grants bail to Bangaru Laxman",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/hc-grants-bail-bangaru-laxman-2365634",
"tier": 2
}
],
"resignations": [
{
"n": "George Fernandes",
"office": "Union Defence Minister",
"when": "Mar 2001",
"year": 2001,
"level": "union",
"party": "Samata Party"
}
]
},
{
"no": 64,
"id": "case-64",
"sk": 20011201,
"year": 2001,
"date": "CAG report, 2001",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Kargil caskets. Coffins bought at many times the going price",
"stamp": "Audited, alleged, then cleared by the courts",
"human": {
"v": "The bodies of soldiers killed in the 1999 Kargil conflict",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Aluminium caskets contracted at around $2,000 each against a quoted $172, with much of the supply arriving after the fighting ended",
"est": true
},
"what": "A 2001 CAG report questioned the emergency purchase of US-made aluminium caskets for soldiers killed at Kargil, finding the price paid far above what the same item was available for, and that a large share of the wartime purchases were delivered months after the conflict had ended.",
"dodge": "The audit finding hardened into a political charge of profiteering from soldiers' bodies. The Defence Minister said the purchase was cleared at defence secretary level and that he had no part in it. No political figure was ever convicted, and in 2015 the Supreme Court cleared both the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister of wrongdoing.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "George Fernandes",
"r": "Defence Minister; cleared by the Supreme Court in 2015"
}
],
"pos": "The government said the caskets were bought under wartime emergency procedures at a moment of urgent need, that the comparison price was not for an equivalent item, and that no minister was involved in the transaction.",
"alleg": "The pricing finding is the CAG's. The allegation of corruption was never established, and the courts cleared those accused. This case is recorded here because the audit is real and the accountability question about emergency procurement stands, not because the scandal was proven.",
"alt": "Emergency procurement rules that survive an audit, and a government willing to publish the file rather than argue about it for fourteen years.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Tribune: SC rejects PILs seeking a Kargil deals probe",
"url": "https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/nation/kargil-deals-sc-rejects-two-pils-for-probe-145350",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Wikipedia: Kargil coffin scam (overview)",
"url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_coffin_scam",
"tier": 3
}
]
},
{
"no": 65,
"id": "case-65",
"sk": 20030601,
"year": 2003,
"date": "Surfaced 2003",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Telgi. Counterfeit stamp paper, and the police who were paid to look away",
"stamp": "Kingpin convicted. Patrons never named.",
"human": {
"v": "Property deeds, insurance and court filings across several states executed on forged government paper",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A counterfeiting operation run for years with official stationery and official protection",
"est": true
},
"what": "An organised syndicate headed by Abdul Karim Telgi printed and sold counterfeit government stamp paper across several states through the 1990s, using machinery and access that could only have come from inside the system. A court-monitored Special Investigation Team eventually arrested dozens, including serving police officers.",
"dodge": "An earlier state inquiry raised nothing; the case only moved after a public interest litigation forced a court-monitored SIT. Telgi was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to 30 years. Serving policemen were convicted of helping him. The politicians he claimed to have paid were never charged, and the question of who inside government supplied the machinery was never answered on the record.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Maharashtra state government",
"r": "Home department and police establishment during the racket"
},
{
"n": "Maharashtra police",
"r": "Officers convicted of abetting; senior patronage never established"
}
],
"pos": "Successive state governments pointed to the convictions of Telgi and of the police officers as proof that the system had worked, and rejected the claim of political protection as unproven.",
"alleg": "Telgi's claim, made in custody, that he paid senior politicians is an allegation that was never tested in court and is recorded here as such.",
"alt": "A court-monitored investigation from the first complaint rather than after a PIL, and a public accounting of how government printing machinery reached a private syndicate.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Business Standard: who was Telgi and what was the scam",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/scam-2003-who-was-abdul-karim-telgi-and-what-was-the-stamp-paper-scam-123080800309_1.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "The Week: the Telgi stamp paper racket",
"url": "https://www.theweek.in/news/entertainment/2023/08/30/true-story-abdul-karim-telgi-from-fruit-vendor-to-mastermind-of-multi-crore-stamp-paper-scam.html",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 66,
"id": "case-66",
"sk": 20081116,
"year": 2008,
"date": "Allocations 2008; CAG report Nov 2010",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "2G spectrum. A ₹1.76 lakh crore estimate, and not one conviction",
"stamp": "Licences cancelled. Everyone acquitted.",
"human": {
"v": "A finite public asset handed out at 2001 prices in 2008, on a first-come queue that moved when the queue was told to move",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "CAG put the presumptive loss at ₹1,76,379 crore, a figure disputed from the day it was published",
"est": true
},
"what": "In January 2008 the Department of Telecommunications issued 122 telecom licences with spectrum at 2001 prices, on a first-come-first-served basis whose cut-off was moved at short notice. The CAG report tabled in November 2010 found the Telecom Minister had overridden the advice of the Law and Finance Ministries. In February 2012 the Supreme Court cancelled all 122 licences as unconstitutional and arbitrary.",
"timeline": [
{
"sk": 20080110,
"on": "Jan 2008",
"kind": "incident",
"what": "The Department of Telecommunications issues 122 telecom licences with spectrum at 2001 prices, first-come-first-served, with the cut-off moved at short notice."
},
{
"sk": 20101116,
"on": "Nov 2010",
"kind": "action",
"what": "The CAG report is tabled. It finds the Telecom Minister overrode the advice of the Law and Finance ministries, and puts a presumptive loss of ₹1.76 lakh crore on the allocations."
},
{
"sk": 20101120,
"on": "Nov 2010",
"kind": "answer",
"what": "A. Raja resigns as Telecom Minister."
},
{
"sk": 20120202,
"on": "Feb 2012",
"kind": "action",
"what": "The Supreme Court quashes all 122 licences."
},
{
"sk": 20171221,
"on": "Dec 2017",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "A special CBI court acquits all 18 accused, holding that the prosecution failed to prove anything. The ₹1.76 lakh crore figure is never tested in court and remains presumptive."
}
],
"dodge": "The Supreme Court struck down the licences, but the criminal case collapsed: in December 2017 a special CBI court acquitted all 18 accused, holding the prosecution had failed to prove anything. The ₹1.76 lakh crore figure was never tested and remains a presumptive estimate. Nobody was punished, and nobody was cleared in a way that settled the matter either.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "A. Raja",
"r": "Telecom Minister (DMK); acquitted 2017"
},
{
"n": "Kanimozhi",
"r": "DMK MP; acquitted 2017"
}
],
"pos": "The minister and his party maintained the allocation followed an existing policy inherited from the previous government, that the presumptive loss figure was a notional construct, and the 2017 acquittal vindicated them.",
"alleg": "The loss figure is a CAG presumptive estimate, contested by economists and by the government of the day. All criminal charges ended in acquittal. What is not contested is that the Supreme Court found the allocation process itself unconstitutional.",
"alt": "Auctioning a scarce public asset at market value, and a prosecution capable of surviving a trial so that a cancelled-licence finding did not end in nobody being answerable.",
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 176379
},
"sources": [
{
"label": "Business Today: all 18 accused acquitted in the 2G case",
"url": "https://www.businesstoday.in/amp/industry/telecom/story/2g-scam-verdict-a-raja-kanimozhi-cag-vinod-rai-spectrum-87503-2017-12-21",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Outlook: what happened to the 122 cancelled licences",
"url": "https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/2g-scam-verdict-now-what-happens-to-the-122-telecom-licences-cancelled-by-suprem/305798",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: SC axes 2G licences",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/collective-failure-govt-swamy-sc-2309548",
"tier": 2
}
],
"resignations": [
{
"n": "A. Raja",
"office": "Union Telecom Minister",
"when": "Nov 2010",
"year": 2010,
"level": "union",
"party": "DMK"
}
]
},
{
"no": 67,
"id": "case-67",
"sk": 20101003,
"year": 2010,
"date": "Games Oct 2010; ED closure accepted 2025",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Commonwealth Games 2010. Nineteen FIRs, and an empty dock at the end",
"stamp": "Fifteen years. Case closed. Nobody answerable.",
"human": {
"v": "A capital city rebuilt in a hurry, with the bill and the contracts both disputed",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A CAG report describing corruption, mismanagement and favouritism across the preparations",
"est": true
},
"what": "The CAG's report on the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games set out systematic overpricing, favouritism in contracts and mismanagement across the preparations. Nineteen FIRs followed. Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi was arrested and spent months in custody.",
"timeline": [
{
"sk": 20101003,
"on": "Oct 2010",
"kind": "incident",
"what": "The Commonwealth Games are held in Delhi."
},
{
"sk": 20110401,
"on": "2011",
"kind": "action",
"what": "The CAG reports systematic overpricing, favouritism in contracts and mismanagement across the preparations. Nineteen FIRs follow, and the Organising Committee chairman is arrested and spends months in custody."
},
{
"sk": 20130101,
"on": "2011 onward",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "The prosecutions go nowhere. Officials are acquitted in several of the cases."
},
{
"sk": 20250101,
"on": "2025",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "A Delhi court accepts the Enforcement Directorate's closure report on the money-laundering investigation, ending the matter without a finding. Fifteen years, nineteen FIRs, and no political accountability."
}
],
"dodge": "The prosecutions went nowhere. Officials were acquitted in several cases; a Delhi court accepted the Enforcement Directorate's closure report on the money-laundering investigation, ending the matter without a finding. Fifteen years, nineteen FIRs, and no political or official accountability at the end of it.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Suresh Kalmadi",
"r": "Organising Committee chairman, Congress MP; arrested, never convicted"
},
{
"n": "Union Sports Ministry",
"r": "Oversight of the Games; no official held responsible"
}
],
"pos": "Kalmadi denied wrongdoing throughout and was never convicted; the closure of the investigation is cited by his defenders as vindication.",
"alleg": "The CAG's findings on process are on the record. Individual criminal liability was alleged and never established, and the investigating agency itself ultimately sought closure.",
"alt": "Contracts published as they were awarded, and an investigation that either convicted someone or said plainly and early that there was nothing to convict on.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Tribune: court accepts ED closure report on CWG",
"url": "https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/india/no-case-against-kalmadi-others-court-accepts-ed-closure-report-on-2010-cwg-scam/",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "ThePrint: 19 FIRs, 15 years, zero accountability",
"url": "https://theprint.in/india/19-firs-15-yrs-zero-accountability-unresolved-saga-of-cwg-scam-that-changed-delhi-its-politics/2479015/",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 68,
"id": "case-68",
"sk": 20101109,
"year": 2010,
"date": "Nov 2010; commission report Apr 2013",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Adarsh. Flats raised for war widows, taken by the people in office",
"stamp": "Four chief ministers indicted. Report rejected.",
"human": {
"v": "Housing intended for war widows and defence personnel, allotted instead to politicians, bureaucrats and officers",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Prime Colaba land and 25 allotments found illegal, 22 of them made through proxies",
"est": false
},
"what": "A 31-storey building in Colaba, Mumbai, raised on the stated purpose of housing war widows and defence personnel, was found to have been allotted largely to serving and retired politicians, civil servants and military officers at prices far below the market. Chief Minister Ashok Chavan resigned in November 2010 after reports that relatives held flats.",
"dodge": "A two-member judicial commission under a retired High Court judge took evidence from 182 witnesses over two years and indicted four former chief ministers. The Maharashtra government then rejected its own commission's report. Prosecutions stalled on sanction and procedure, and the political findings were never acted on.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ashok Chavan",
"r": "Maharashtra Chief Minister (Congress); resigned Nov 2010"
},
{
"n": "Vilasrao Deshmukh",
"r": "Former Maharashtra Chief Minister; indicted by the commission"
},
{
"n": "Sushilkumar Shinde",
"r": "Former Maharashtra Chief Minister; indicted by the commission"
}
],
"pos": "Those named denied wrongdoing and challenged the commission's findings; the state government said the report's conclusions were not sustainable in law.",
"alleg": "The commission's indictments are findings of an inquiry, not criminal convictions. Several of those named were later granted relief by the courts.",
"alt": "A government that accepts the report of the commission it appointed, and sanction to prosecute decided on the record rather than withheld indefinitely.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Moneylife: what the Adarsh probe panel report says",
"url": "https://www.moneylife.in/article/adarsh-housing-scam-here-is-what-the-probe-panel-report-says/35841.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: Maharashtra rejects Adarsh scam report",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/content/375860/mrashtra-rejects-adarsh-scam-report.html",
"tier": 2
}
],
"resignations": [
{
"n": "Ashok Chavan",
"office": "Maharashtra Chief Minister",
"when": "Nov 2010",
"year": 2010,
"level": "state",
"party": "Indian National Congress"
}
]
},
{
"no": 70,
"id": "case-70",
"sk": 20111101,
"year": 2011,
"date": "2005 to 2011; CBI probe ordered Nov 2011",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "red",
"title": "NRHM Uttar Pradesh. Health money gone, and the witnesses dead",
"stamp": "Bodies, then a CBI probe. No political conviction.",
"human": {
"v": "Two chief medical officers shot dead in Lucknow and a deputy CMO found dead in jail; five deaths in all linked to the cover-up",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "Of about ₹10,000 crore released under the mission, the CAG found roughly ₹4,900 crore misappropriated",
"est": true
},
"what": "Money released to Uttar Pradesh under the National Rural Health Mission between 2005 and 2011 was diverted on a mass scale. Two serving chief medical officers were shot dead in Lucknow in broad daylight, and a deputy CMO arrested in the case was found dead inside Lucknow district jail in June 2011.",
"dodge": "The state did not order an independent investigation; the Allahabad High Court had to direct a CBI probe in November 2011 after the second CMO was killed. A minister and a health minister resigned and one was arrested. The CBI questioned the Chief Minister. No political figure was convicted, and the deaths were never conclusively explained.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Babu Singh Kushwaha",
"r": "UP Family Welfare Minister (BSP); resigned, arrested"
},
{
"n": "Mayawati",
"r": "UP Chief Minister (BSP); questioned by the CBI"
}
],
"pos": "The state government said it had itself acted by removing ministers and ordering departmental inquiries, and denied that the deaths were connected to the diversion of funds.",
"alleg": "That the deaths were murders to suppress the case is reported and widely alleged but not established in court; one death was officially recorded in custody and remains disputed.",
"alt": "An independent probe on the first audit finding rather than after two officials were shot, and protection for officials who were about to give evidence.",
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 4900,
"deaths": 5
},
"sources": [
{
"label": "Business Standard: the ₹5,000-crore NRHM scam",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/rs-5-000-cr-nrhm-scam-resurfaces-once-again-115092300853_1.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: CBI to question Mayawati in NRHM case",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/cbi-question-mayawati-nrhm-case-2151062",
"tier": 2
}
],
"resignations": [
{
"n": "Babu Singh Kushwaha",
"office": "UP Family Welfare Minister",
"when": "2011",
"year": 2011,
"level": "state",
"party": "BSP"
}
]
},
{
"no": 71,
"id": "case-71",
"sk": 20120817,
"year": 2012,
"date": "CAG report tabled 17 Aug 2012",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Coal blocks. 204 allocations quashed, and a ₹1.86 lakh crore estimate",
"stamp": "Allocations cancelled. Ministers untouched.",
"human": {
"v": "A national mineral reserve allocated for two decades without competitive bidding",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "CAG put the gain to allottees at ₹1.86 lakh crore, revised down from a leaked draft figure of ₹10.67 lakh crore",
"est": true
},
"what": "The CAG report tabled in August 2012 found that coal blocks had been allocated without competitive bidding, transferring a large windfall to allottees, and that companies had submitted inflated claims of net worth and experience. In 2014 the Supreme Court held all allocations made since 1993 illegal and arbitrary, and cancelled 204 of 218 blocks.",
"timeline": [
{
"sk": 19930101,
"on": "1993 onward",
"kind": "incident",
"what": "Coal blocks are allocated without competitive bidding, transferring a large windfall to allottees. Companies submit inflated claims of net worth and experience."
},
{
"sk": 20120817,
"on": "17 Aug 2012",
"kind": "action",
"what": "The CAG report is tabled."
},
{
"sk": 20140825,
"on": "Aug 2014",
"kind": "action",
"what": "The Supreme Court holds every allocation made since 1993 illegal."
},
{
"sk": 20140924,
"on": "Sep 2014",
"kind": "action",
"what": "204 allocations are cancelled."
},
{
"sk": 20141001,
"on": "2014 onward",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "Some officials and businessmen are prosecuted; the political level is never reached. The coal portfolio was held by the Prime Minister for part of the period under audit."
},
{
"sk": 20260101,
"on": "2026",
"kind": "silence",
"what": "The oldest of the cases finally ends, in acquittal."
}
],
"dodge": "The allocations were quashed and some officials and businessmen were prosecuted, but the political level was not reached. The coal portfolio was held by the Prime Minister for part of the period under audit. The oldest case took until 2026 to end, in acquittal.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Manmohan Singh",
"r": "Prime Minister; held the coal portfolio for part of the audited period"
},
{
"n": "Ministry of Coal",
"r": "Allocating authority across successive governments from 1993"
}
],
"pos": "The government argued the allocations followed the screening-committee policy in force since 1993 under governments of both major parties, that no loss was actually realised, and that the CAG's presumptive figure was misconceived.",
"alleg": "The loss figure is presumptive and was disputed at the time, including by the government and by economists. The Supreme Court's finding of illegality in the process is not disputed.",
"alt": "Competitive auction of a public mineral from the start, which is what the law was eventually changed to require.",
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 186000
},
"sources": [
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: SC reserves order on cancelling coal blocks",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/india%2Fsc-reserves-order-cancelling-coal-2172009",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: SC notice to Centre on the coal allocations",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/supreme-court-notice-to-centre-on-coal-scam-284456.html",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 72,
"id": "case-72",
"sk": 20130212,
"year": 2013,
"date": "Feb 2013 onward",
"cat": "Crony capital (alleged)",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "AgustaWestland. A ₹3,600 crore chopper deal, and courts that disagreed",
"stamp": "Deal scrapped. Italian courts acquitted.",
"human": {
"v": "Twelve VVIP helicopters, procured on specifications that were altered to fit",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A contract worth about ₹3,600 crore, cancelled with payments already made",
"est": true
},
"what": "India contracted AgustaWestland for twelve VVIP helicopters after the mandatory service-ceiling specification was lowered, a change that allowed the eventual winner to qualify. Italian prosecutors alleged bribes were paid to secure it. India cancelled the contract in 2014 and the CBI charged a former air chief and others.",
"dodge": "The Italian proceedings ran in both directions: acquittal, then conviction on appeal, then final acquittal of the executives in January 2018 for want of evidence. The Indian investigation continued regardless and has produced no conviction of any Indian official or politician. The specification change that shaped the tender was never satisfactorily explained by anyone.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "A.K. Antony",
"r": "Defence Minister; cancelled the contract, ordered the CBI probe"
},
{
"n": "S.P. Tyagi",
"r": "Former IAF chief; charged by the CBI, acquitted by the Italian court"
}
],
"pos": "The Defence Ministry pointed to its own cancellation of the contract and referral to the CBI as evidence that it acted. Those charged deny wrongdoing and cite the Italian acquittals.",
"alleg": "Bribery is alleged and, in the Italian courts, ultimately not proven. The Indian case remains unresolved. Nothing here should be read as a finding that any Indian official took money.",
"alt": "A written, published justification whenever a qualifying specification is changed mid-tender, which is the decision that made the rest possible.",
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 3600
},
"sources": [
{
"label": "ThePrint: Italian court finds no scam in the chopper deal",
"url": "https://theprint.in/india/governance/italian-court-finds-no-scam-in-iafs-rs-3600-crore-agustawestland-vvip-helicopter-deal/123198/",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: Italian court acquits Agusta execs",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/content/652604/italian-court-acquits-former-agusta.html",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 73,
"id": "case-73",
"sk": 20051108,
"year": 2005,
"date": "Volcker report, Nov 2005",
"cat": "Democratic institutions",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Oil-for-food. A foreign minister named, and gone in a month",
"stamp": "Resigned. Never charged.",
"human": {
"v": "India's name in a UN inquiry into who profited from sanctions on Iraq",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Allocations of Iraqi oil listed against the foreign minister and his party as non-contractual beneficiaries",
"est": true
},
"what": "Paul Volcker's independent inquiry into the UN oil-for-food programme listed External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh and the Congress party as non-contractual beneficiaries of Iraqi oil allocations. He was dropped from the external affairs portfolio in November 2005 and left the government entirely a month later.",
"dodge": "A domestic inquiry authority was set up and ran for years without producing a prosecution. Natwar Singh was never charged, and no finding was ever published that settled whether the allocations were real or what became of them. The resignation stood in for an answer.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "K. Natwar Singh",
"r": "External Affairs Minister; resigned Nov 2005, never charged"
}
],
"pos": "Natwar Singh denied receiving any benefit, said his name had been used without his knowledge, and later alleged he had been made to carry the party's exposure.",
"alleg": "The Volcker listing is an inquiry finding, not a criminal one. No court ever tested it and no charge was brought.",
"alt": "An inquiry that finished, published, and either charged someone or cleared them by name.",
"resignations": [
{
"n": "K. Natwar Singh",
"office": "Union External Affairs Minister",
"when": "Nov 2005",
"year": 2005,
"level": "union",
"party": "Indian National Congress"
}
],
"sources": [
{
"label": "VOA: India's foreign minister quits over oil-for-food",
"url": "https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2005-11-07-voa17/310932.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Al Jazeera: Indian minister quits over Iraq scandal",
"url": "https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2005/12/6/indian-minister-quits-over-iraq-scandal",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 74,
"id": "case-74",
"sk": 20080722,
"year": 2008,
"date": "22 Jul 2008 (trust vote)",
"cat": "Democratic institutions",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Cash for votes. Currency waved on the floor of the Lok Sabha",
"stamp": "Notes on camera. Nobody's government fell.",
"human": {
"v": "A confidence vote in Parliament, and a bundle of notes held up in the chamber to prove it had been bought",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Cash allegedly offered to MPs to abstain from a vote the government needed to survive",
"est": true
},
"what": "On 22 July 2008, ahead of the confidence vote the UPA needed to survive the nuclear deal, three BJP MPs walked into the Lok Sabha and waved wads of currency notes, alleging they had been paid to vote for the government. The government won the vote.",
"dodge": "A parliamentary committee investigated and could not conclude who had paid. A police investigation years later jailed aides on both sides, including an aide to the leader of the opposition and a Congress MP, but never established who authorised the money. Both parties accused the other of staging it. The vote itself was never revisited.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Union Government (UPA)",
"r": "Won the vote; alleged to have bought it"
},
{
"n": "Bharatiya Janata Party",
"r": "MPs who displayed the cash; accused of staging the sting"
}
],
"pos": "The government called the display a fabricated stunt designed to discredit a vote it had won legitimately. The opposition said it was proof of bribery caught in the act.",
"alleg": "Who paid, and whether the display was a genuine exposure or a set-up, was never established. Both accounts remain allegations.",
"alt": "A vote annulled and re-held while the money was investigated, rather than a government seated for five years on a result nobody could vouch for.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Business Standard: timeline of the cash-for-vote case",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/timeline-of-cash-for-vote-scam-case-113112201174_1.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: money in the House that shocked a nation",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/money-house-shocked-nation-2402000",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 75,
"id": "case-75",
"sk": 20081130,
"year": 2008,
"date": "26 to 29 Nov 2008",
"cat": "National security",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "26/11. A city under siege, and the one minister who went",
"stamp": "Home Minister resigned. Warnings still unexplained.",
"human": {
"v": "166 people killed and over 300 injured across four days in Mumbai",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Specific intelligence warnings of a seaborne attack that were not acted on",
"est": true
},
"what": "Ten armed men arrived in Mumbai by sea on 26 November 2008 and attacked a railway terminus, two hotels, a hospital and a Jewish centre over four days, killing 166 people. Intelligence warnings of a seaborne attack on those targets had been passed and not acted on.",
"dodge": "Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil resigned on 30 November taking moral responsibility, the rarest outcome on this ledger. But the machinery failure beneath him was never publicly accounted for: no officer was named, the intelligence inputs were never published, and the state's own inquiry report was not tabled in full. A resignation happened; an explanation did not.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Shivraj Patil",
"r": "Union Home Minister; resigned 30 Nov 2008 taking moral responsibility"
},
{
"n": "Union Home Ministry",
"r": "Coastal security and intelligence coordination"
}
],
"pos": "The government pointed to the resignation, the creation of the NIA and a coastal security overhaul as its response, and to the conviction and execution of the surviving attacker.",
"alleg": "That the warnings were specific enough to have prevented the attack is contested; what is not contested is that warnings existed and that no official was held responsible for what happened to them.",
"alt": "The inquiry report published, and the officials who sat on the warnings named, rather than one minister absorbing the whole failure and the system carrying on.",
"estimates": {
"deaths": 166
},
"resignations": [
{
"n": "Shivraj Patil",
"office": "Union Home Minister",
"when": "Nov 2008",
"year": 2008,
"level": "union",
"party": "Indian National Congress"
}
],
"sources": [
{
"label": "VOA: India's Home Minister resigns after Mumbai",
"url": "https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2008-11-30-voa4/401396.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Al Jazeera: ex-minister discusses the Mumbai attack",
"url": "https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2009/11/25/ex-minister-discusses-mumbai-attack",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 77,
"id": "case-77",
"sk": 20100418,
"year": 2010,
"date": "18 Apr 2010",
"cat": "Crony capital (alleged)",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "IPL Kochi. A minister, a friend's equity, and a resignation",
"stamp": "Resigned over a conflict of interest",
"human": {
"v": "A public office used, on the allegation, to help a private consortium win a franchise",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Free equity in a bid worth around $330 million, held by someone close to the minister",
"est": true
},
"what": "Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor mentored a consortium that won the Kochi IPL franchise. It emerged that his friend, later his wife, held sweat equity in the company heading the consortium. He resigned on 18 April 2010.",
"dodge": "The resignation closed the political question and opened none of the others. The tax and enforcement inquiries into the franchise dragged on for years without a conclusion about the minister, and the wider question of how IPL franchises were awarded went to a separate inquiry that produced no accountability for anyone in office.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Shashi Tharoor",
"r": "Minister of State for External Affairs; resigned Apr 2010"
}
],
"pos": "Tharoor denied any financial interest or impropriety, said the equity was not his and that he had facilitated a bid for his home state without personal gain.",
"alleg": "A conflict of interest is the allegation; no finding of corruption was made against him, and he returned to public life.",
"alt": "A declared-interests register for ministers that makes this visible before the bid, not after it.",
"resignations": [
{
"n": "Shashi Tharoor",
"office": "Union Minister of State for External Affairs",
"when": "Apr 2010",
"year": 2010,
"level": "union",
"party": "Indian National Congress"
}
],
"sources": [
{
"label": "Business Standard: Kochi IPL row, Tharoor resigns",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/kochi-ipl-row-shashi-tharoor-resigns-110041800068_1.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Scroll: the $330 million IPL controversy",
"url": "https://scroll.in/article/654362/330-million-ipl-controversy-continues-to-dog-tharoor",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 78,
"id": "case-78",
"sk": 20110217,
"year": 2011,
"date": "Deal 2005; rescinded Feb 2011",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Antrix-Devas. Public spectrum leased quietly, then torn up expensively",
"stamp": "Cancelled. India lost the arbitration.",
"human": {
"v": "S-band spectrum, a scarce public asset, committed to a private firm without competitive process",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "Contract rescinded in 2011; India has since faced arbitration awards running to over a billion dollars plus interest",
"est": true
},
"what": "In 2005 Antrix, the commercial arm of ISRO, agreed to lease 70 MHz of S-band satellite spectrum to Devas Multimedia. A CAG review found the agreement had been made without competitive process and promoted a private interest at public cost. The government rescinded the contract in February 2011.",
"dodge": "Cancelling the contract did not settle anything: international arbitral tribunals repeatedly found against India, leaving the taxpayer facing awards larger than anything the original deal was worth. No official was held responsible either for signing an agreement that should not have been signed, or for cancelling it in a way that cost more than it saved.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Department of Space",
"r": "Parent of Antrix; signed and then rescinded the agreement"
},
{
"n": "Prime Minister's Office",
"r": "Department of Space reports to the PMO"
}
],
"pos": "The government said it cancelled the contract on grounds of national security and strategic need for the spectrum, and has argued in every forum that the deal was fraudulent from the start.",
"alleg": "Fraud in the original deal is the government's own contention, accepted by Indian courts and rejected by several arbitral tribunals. The two findings have not been reconciled.",
"alt": "Competitive allocation of the spectrum in 2005, and a cancellation route chosen with the arbitration exposure calculated first.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "The Quint: the scuttled Antrix-Devas deal explained",
"url": "https://www.thequint.com/explainers/antrix-devas-deal-scam-or-government-cold-feet",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "ORF: lessons from the Devas v Antrix disputes",
"url": "https://www.orfonline.org/research/devas-v-antrix-lessons-for-india-in-navigating-bilateral-investment-treaty-disputes",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 79,
"id": "case-79",
"sk": 20110707,
"year": 2011,
"date": "Resigned Jul 2011; discharged 2017",
"cat": "Crony capital (alleged)",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Aircel-Maxis. A telecom minister, a sale, and a discharge",
"stamp": "Resigned. Court discharged him.",
"human": {
"v": "A telecom promoter who says he was pressed into selling his company",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "The sale of a telecom operator alleged to have been coerced by the minister holding the licensing power",
"est": true
},
"what": "The CBI alleged that Dayanidhi Maran, as Telecom Minister, delayed licences to pressure the promoter of Aircel into selling to Malaysia's Maxis, and that his family's media business received investment from a Maxis-linked entity in return. He resigned as Textiles Minister in July 2011.",
"dodge": "In February 2017 a special court discharged the Maran brothers and the other accused, holding the agency had produced no evidence worth framing charges on. Six years of investigation ended without a trial. Neither the allegation nor the minister's innocence was ever tested before a court on the merits.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Dayanidhi Maran",
"r": "Telecom Minister at the time; resigned as Textiles Minister Jul 2011; discharged 2017"
}
],
"pos": "Maran said the allegations were fabricated, that the licensing decisions followed policy, and that his discharge vindicated him entirely.",
"alleg": "Coercion of the seller is an allegation the court found unsupported by evidence at the charge stage. It is recorded here with that outcome attached.",
"alt": "An investigation that either produces chargeable evidence within a defined period or closes publicly and says so.",
"resignations": [
{
"n": "Dayanidhi Maran",
"office": "Union Textiles Minister",
"when": "Jul 2011",
"year": 2011,
"level": "union",
"party": "DMK"
}
],
"sources": [
{
"label": "Business Standard: court discharges Maran in Aircel-Maxis",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/2g-court-discharges-dayanidhi-maran-and-others-accused-in-aircel-maxis-case-117020200626_1.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "DNA: what the Aircel-Maxis deal was about",
"url": "https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-what-is-the-aircel-maxis-deal-and-why-is-dayanidhi-maran-in-trouble-2004611",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 80,
"id": "case-80",
"sk": 20120907,
"year": 2012,
"date": "Shah Commission report, Sep 2012",
"cat": "Environment",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Goa. ₹35,000 crore of ore taken out of a state that stopped counting",
"stamp": "Two chief ministers booked. Mining resumed.",
"human": {
"v": "Villages, groundwater and forest across a small state given over to unregulated extraction",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "The Shah Commission put illegal mining in Goa between 2005 and 2012 at about ₹35,000 crore",
"est": true
},
"what": "The Justice M.B. Shah Commission report, tabled in Parliament in September 2012, found industrial-scale illegal iron ore mining in Goa and held that the Chief Minister, who also held the mines portfolio, was aware of the non-compliance and illegalities and did not act on complaints.",
"dodge": "Mining was suspended, then resumed under new leases. Two former chief ministers were eventually booked. Prosecutions have moved slowly and the sums the Commission identified have not been recovered. The state's mining regulation was rebuilt around the same industry it had failed to police.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Digambar Kamat",
"r": "Goa Chief Minister and Mines Minister (Congress); indicted by the Shah Commission"
},
{
"n": "Goa state government",
"r": "Mines, forest and pollution control departments"
}
],
"pos": "Those named have contested the Commission's findings, arguing it exceeded its remit and that lease irregularities were technical rather than criminal.",
"alleg": "The Commission's conclusions are findings of an inquiry, not convictions, and remain contested in court.",
"alt": "Ore export volumes reconciled against lease permissions in public, monthly, which is all it would have taken to see this as it happened.",
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 35000
},
"sources": [
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: judicial panel indicts ex-Goa CM",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/judicial-panel-indicts-ex-goa-2359012",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: two former CMs booked in Goa mining",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/2-former-cms-booked-goa-2251331",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 81,
"id": "case-81",
"sk": 20121001,
"year": 2012,
"date": "Surfaced 2012; clean chit 2019",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Maharashtra irrigation. ₹70,000 crore spent, and almost no new irrigation",
"stamp": "Clean chit. The water never arrived.",
"human": {
"v": "Farmers in a drought-prone state promised irrigation that a decade of spending did not deliver",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "About ₹70,000 crore spent over a decade for a reported rise in irrigation potential of roughly 0.1%",
"est": true
},
"what": "The state's own 2012 Economic Survey recorded that Maharashtra had spent close to ₹70,000 crore on irrigation over a decade while irrigation potential rose by a fraction of a percent. Project costs had been revised upward repeatedly and approvals cleared in bulk.",
"dodge": "The Deputy Chief Minister who chaired the relevant irrigation corporation resigned briefly and returned. A white paper was produced. The Anti-Corruption Bureau later gave him a clean chit in the cases examined. The gap between money spent and water delivered has never been explained by anyone.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Ajit Pawar",
"r": "Water Resources Minister and Vidarbha irrigation corporation chairman (NCP); later cleared by the ACB"
},
{
"n": "Maharashtra Water Resources Department",
"r": "Approvals and cost revisions"
}
],
"pos": "Pawar denied wrongdoing throughout, said cost revisions reflected inflation and design changes, and points to the Anti-Corruption Bureau's clean chit.",
"alleg": "Corruption is alleged and has not been established; the investigating agency itself cleared the principal figure. The spending figure and the irrigation figure are the state's own.",
"alt": "Irrigation potential audited against expenditure every year and published, so a decade cannot pass before anyone notices.",
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 70000
},
"sources": [
{
"label": "ThePrint: what the Maharashtra irrigation scam was",
"url": "https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/maharashtra-irrigation-scam-clean-chit-ajit-pawar/2838627/",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Tribune: Ajit Pawar gets ACB clean chit",
"url": "https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/nation/ajit-pawar-gets-acb-clean-chit-in-vidarbha-irrigation-scam-870997",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 82,
"id": "case-82",
"sk": 20130423,
"year": 2013,
"date": "Surfaced Apr 2013",
"cat": "Consumer harm",
"sev": "red",
"title": "Saradha. Small savers cleaned out, and politicians in the frame",
"stamp": "Depositors ruined. Investigation still crawling.",
"human": {
"v": "Hundreds of thousands of small depositors across eastern India, many of them very poor; suicides were reported among agents and investors",
"est": true
},
"cost": {
"v": "A collapse put at over ₹10,000 crore across West Bengal, Odisha and Assam",
"est": true
},
"what": "The Saradha Group collected deposits from hundreds of thousands of small savers across eastern India through a web of companies, and collapsed in April 2013. The Supreme Court ordered a CBI investigation in 2014 after the initial probe indicated the involvement of politicians across three states.",
"dodge": "The investigation became a jurisdictional fight between the central agency and the state government, culminating in a police commissioner being questioned over destroyed evidence and the state refusing cooperation. More than a decade on, senior political figures named early have not been tried, and depositors have recovered a fraction of what they lost.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "West Bengal state government",
"r": "Regulation of deposit-taking; accused of obstructing the CBI"
},
{
"n": "Securities and Exchange Board of India",
"r": "Collective investment regulation; acted years after the schemes began"
}
],
"pos": "The state government said it had set up its own commission and a compensation fund for depositors, and characterised the central investigation as politically motivated.",
"alleg": "Political protection is alleged and, in the case of most figures named, untested in court. The collapse and the losses are not in dispute.",
"alt": "A regulator that acts when unregistered deposit-taking reaches lakhs of people, and an investigation not paralysed by which government is running it.",
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 10000
},
"sources": [
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: SC orders CBI probe into the chit fund scam",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/india%2Fsupreme-court-orders-cbi-probe-into-chit-fund-scam-391943.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "ThePrint: SC declines to monitor the Saradha probe",
"url": "https://theprint.in/india/governance/supreme-court-refuses-to-monitor-ongoing-cbi-investigation-into-saradha-chit-fund-scam/190754/",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 84,
"id": "case-84",
"sk": 20130510,
"year": 2013,
"date": "May 2013",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Railgate. A bribe for a seat on the Railway Board",
"stamp": "Minister resigned, then became a witness.",
"human": {
"v": "Senior appointments in the railways treated as purchasable",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "₹90 lakh caught being paid for a Railway Board post",
"est": false
},
"what": "In May 2013 the CBI arrested the Railway Minister's nephew for taking ₹90 lakh as a bribe to fix the appointment of a Member (Electrical) to the Railway Board. The money was caught in transit.",
"dodge": "Pawan Kumar Bansal refused to resign, then resigned under pressure from his own party rather than on his own initiative. The CBI found no evidence against him and named him as a prosecution witness in the case against his nephew. Nobody has explained how a Railway Board appointment came to have a price, or whether it had one before.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Pawan Kumar Bansal",
"r": "Union Railway Minister; resigned May 2013, later a prosecution witness"
}
],
"pos": "Bansal denied any knowledge of his nephew's dealings, and the CBI stated it found no evidence of his involvement.",
"alleg": "The minister's own culpability was alleged, investigated, and not established. The bribe itself was caught in the act.",
"alt": "Board appointments made through a published, contestable process rather than one worth ₹90 lakh to influence.",
"resignations": [
{
"n": "Pawan Kumar Bansal",
"office": "Union Railway Minister",
"when": "May 2013",
"year": 2013,
"level": "union",
"party": "Indian National Congress"
}
],
"sources": [
{
"label": "Business Standard: Bansal named a witness in Railgate",
"url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/railgate-bansal-named-as-witness-nephew-architect-of-scam-113070400833_1.html",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Deccan Herald: no proof of Bansal's role in bribery",
"url": "https://www.deccanherald.com/india/no-proof-bansals-role-bribery-2269639",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 85,
"id": "case-85",
"sk": 20171213,
"year": 2017,
"date": "Allocation 2007; convicted Dec 2017",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Madhu Koda. A chief minister convicted over a coal block",
"stamp": "Convicted. Three years.",
"human": {
"v": "A state's mineral wealth allocated through a chief minister's office",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A coal block in Jharkhand recommended to a private company against process",
"est": true
},
"what": "Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda was convicted in December 2017, along with a former Union coal secretary and others, of criminal conspiracy and corruption over the allocation of the Rajhara North coal block to a Kolkata company, and sentenced to three years.",
"dodge": "The conviction took a decade from the allocation. It is one of the few on this ledger where a head of government was actually convicted, and it is recorded here for that reason as much as any other. The wider allocations system that produced it had already been struck down by the Supreme Court by then.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Madhu Koda",
"r": "Jharkhand Chief Minister; convicted Dec 2017, sentenced to three years"
},
{
"n": "Ministry of Coal",
"r": "Screening committee that processed the recommendation"
}
],
"pos": "Koda maintained his innocence and appealed; he was subsequently barred from contesting elections after the Supreme Court declined to suspend the conviction.",
"alt": "Allocation by auction, which is what the law now requires, arrived at without needing a decade of litigation first.",
"sources": [
{
"label": "Tribune: Jharkhand ex-CM Koda convicted in coal case",
"url": "https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/nation/coal-scam-jharkhand-ex-cm-madhu-koda-held-guilty-of-corruption-512618",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Scroll: SC dismisses Koda's plea to contest polls",
"url": "https://scroll.in/latest/1074929/sc-dismisses-former-jharkhand-cm-madhu-kodas-plea-seeking-suspension-of-conviction-to-contest-polls",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 86,
"id": "case-86",
"sk": 20030101,
"year": 2003,
"date": "2002 to 2003",
"cat": "Public money",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "Taj Corridor. A riverbed project, and a governor who refused sanction",
"stamp": "Sanction refused. Case never tried.",
"human": {
"v": "Construction on the Yamuna floodplain beside a World Heritage monument, without the clearances it required",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "About ₹175 crore released for a project that was never lawfully cleared",
"est": true
},
"what": "A project to build tourist facilities on the Yamuna riverbed beside the Taj Mahal proceeded in 2002-03 with money released and work begun before the environmental clearances it required were in place. The CBI investigated the then Chief Minister and a minister in her government.",
"dodge": "In June 2007 the Governor refused sanction to prosecute, holding there was insufficient evidence. The case has never been tried on its merits. Two decades on it resurfaces periodically as a live file without ever reaching a court, which is its own form of answer.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "Mayawati",
"r": "UP Chief Minister (BSP); prosecution sanction refused in 2007"
},
{
"n": "Nasimuddin Siddiqui",
"r": "UP minister named in the CBI case"
}
],
"pos": "Mayawati has consistently denied wrongdoing and points to the refusal of sanction and the absence of any charge as settling the matter.",
"alleg": "The allegations were never tested in court because sanction to prosecute was refused. Nothing here should be read as a finding of guilt.",
"alt": "A sanction decision made on published reasons and open to challenge, rather than one that quietly ends a case for twenty years.",
"estimates": {
"costInrCrore": 175
},
"sources": [
{
"label": "Tribune: Taj corridor case coverage (2003)",
"url": "https://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030912/main7.htm",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "Tribune: Taj corridor case coverage (2005)",
"url": "https://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051122/nation.htm",
"tier": 2
}
]
},
{
"no": 87,
"id": "case-87",
"sk": 20181017,
"year": 2018,
"date": "17 Oct 2018",
"cat": "Rights and dissent",
"sev": "amber",
"title": "A minister resigns, sues his accuser, and loses",
"stamp": "Resigned. Lost the defamation case.",
"human": {
"v": "Women who described harassment by a man who by then held public office, and were sued for saying so",
"est": false
},
"cost": {
"v": "A criminal defamation prosecution brought by a serving minister against a journalist who accused him",
"est": false
},
"what": "After multiple women publicly accused Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar of sexual harassment during his earlier career as an editor, he resigned on 17 October 2018 and filed a criminal defamation complaint against journalist Priya Ramani.",
"dodge": "The resignation was accompanied by a prosecution: the accuser was put in the dock rather than the accusations examined. In February 2021 a Delhi court acquitted Ramani, holding that a woman cannot be punished for speaking about abuse and that the right to reputation cannot come at the cost of the right to dignity. No inquiry into the underlying conduct was ever held.",
"ministers": [
{
"n": "M.J. Akbar",
"r": "Union Minister of State for External Affairs; resigned Oct 2018, lost his defamation case"
}
],
"pos": "Akbar denied all the allegations, said they were false and politically motivated, and pursued the defamation complaint and an appeal against the acquittal.",
"alleg": "The harassment allegations were never adjudicated as such; what a court decided was that the journalist was entitled to make them. Nothing here is a criminal finding against him.",
"alt": "An inquiry into the conduct alleged, rather than a criminal case against the woman who alleged it.",
"resignations": [
{
"n": "M.J. Akbar",
"office": "Union Minister of State for External Affairs",
"when": "Oct 2018",
"year": 2018,
"level": "union",
"party": "BJP"
}
],
"sources": [
{
"label": "Tribune: court acquits Priya Ramani in Akbar's case",
"url": "https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/metoo-delhi-court-acquits-priya-ramani-in-mj-akbars-criminal-defamation-case-213733",
"tier": 2
},
{
"label": "The News Minute: Ramani wins, Akbar loses defamation case",
"url": "https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/priya-ramanis-truth-wins-mj-akbar-loses-defamation-case-filed-metoo-143618",
"tier": 2
}
]
}
]