UPSC Mains 2014 GS Paper 4 Q12: model answer
Suppose you are the CEO of a company that manufactures specialized electronic equipment used by a government department. You have submitted your bid for the supply of this equipment to the department. Both the quality and cost of your offer are better than those of the competitors. Yet the concerned officer is demanding a hefty bribe for approving the tender. Getting the order is important both for you and for your company. Not getting the order would mean closing a production line. It may also affect your own career. However, as a value-conscious person, you do not want to give bribe. Valid arguments can be advanced both for giving the bribe and getting the order, and for refusing to pay the bribe and risking the loss of the order. What those arguments could be? Could there be any better way to get out of this dilemma? If so, outline the main elements of this third way, pointing out its merits.
What the question wants
Give arguments for paying and for refusing a bribe for a deserving tender, and outline a better third way with its merits.
How to structure it
Arguments both sides, third way, merits.
- For paying
- For refusing
- Third way
- Merits
How to think it through
For paying: jobs, production line, best product reaches govt anyway, 'consequentialist'. For refusing: law (PC Act 2018 makes giving bribe an offence; Section 9 corporate liability for commercial organisations, defence = adequate procedures), slippery slope, reputation, Kantian duty. Third way: document, escalate to head of department, CVC complaint, integrity pact (CVC promotes Integrity Pacts with Independent External Monitors for big procurement), GeM/e-procurement, industry associations; diversify customers.
Model answer
Stakeholders
- Company workers; shareholders; the department and taxpayers; honest competitors; the officer; me.
Dilemmas
- Saving jobs vs integrity; company interest vs law; ends vs means.
Options
- Pay; refuse and lose; refuse and use lawful channels.
The officer is betting that I will think about my production line before I think about the law. The third way begins by refusing that bet.
Arguments for paying
- Jobs: the production line and its workers survive.
- Best outcome for the department: it gets the better and cheaper equipment anyway.
- 'Everyone does it': refusing only hands the contract to a worse bidder who will pay.
Arguments for refusing
- It is a crime: since 2018, the Prevention of Corruption Act punishes the bribe-giver, and a company can be held liable unless it shows adequate procedures to prevent bribery.
- Slippery slope: once paid, the demand repeats on every order.
- Reputation: a bribery scandal can cost far more than one tender.
- Means matter: a good end does not clean a corrupt means.
The third way
- Record the demand: date, time, words, witnesses.
- Escalate inside the department: write to the head of department and the Chief Vigilance Officer, pointing out that our bid is technically and financially superior.
- Use the CVC: complain to the Central Vigilance Commission; ask for the procurement to be covered by an Integrity Pact with independent external monitors, which the CVC recommends for large contracts.
- Insist on transparent evaluation: e-procurement or the GeM portal, where bids and scores are visible.
- Work with industry associations to raise systemic complaints.
- Reduce dependence: diversify customers so that no single officer controls the company's fate.
Merits of the third way
- Keeps the company within law and protects its name.
- Gives the department the best product honestly.
- Builds a precedent that helps every honest bidder.
It may take longer. But a company that pays once has hired a permanent partner it never wanted.
Draw: A fork in the road: 'pay' and 'refuse', with a third bridge labelled 'record → CVO → CVC → Integrity Pact'.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
bribe demand, PC Act 2018, bribe-giving offence, corporate liability, adequate procedures, slippery slope, CVO, CVC, Integrity Pact, Independent External Monitors, e-procurement, GeM, industry associations, means and ends.
Where most answers lose marks
- Presenting the third way as 'negotiate a smaller bribe' or 'pay through an agent'.
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Fresh examples from current affairs
Supreme Court: no prior approval under Section 17A needed to probe a bribe demand
In a judgment of 16 October 2026, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria held that investigating a bribe demand by a public servant does not need prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Asking for a bribe, the court said, is not part of discharging official duties.
UPSC angle: Prelims: Sections 7, 7A, 17A and 19 of the PC Act. · Mains GS-II/GS-IV: honest officers versus accountability.
19 Oct 2026Learn the concept
Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
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