Anti-corruption laws hurting India?

I think that anti-corruption laws are actually hurting India at a macro-level.

My argument goes this way - corruption is endemic in India due to which the Government has put in place very strict anti-corruption laws. However, as with everything else in our criminal justice system nobody ever gets convicted except at the lower level or if they have pissed off people who are more powerful and corrupt than them. A consequence of this has been that the only real punishment that corrupt officers/politicians undergo is the shame of being caught and/or the seizure of assets. Usually they can get away even when caught by bribing their way out. The media in its enthusiasm has also taken to calling everything corruption - so if somebody takes a decision which in hindsight turns out to be wrong then immediately allegations of corruption are thrown around and since nobody ever gets convicted they undergo the same consequences of people who are corrupt.

One of the effects of this situation is the refusal of officers and politicians to take any decisions which could potentially turn out to be wrong in hindsight or an accusation of corruption can be made. I am sure anybody who has had to deal with the Government at a senior level has come across this situation. So now we have a situation where nobody takes any decisions. So an honest person does not take any decisions because he does not want to be accused of corruption. A dishonest person will also not take any decisions for which he/she is not being bribed because they have no incentive to take a decision -because the last thing u want to do when corrupt is to get caught for taking an honest decision. So the only incentive to take decisions is actually when you are being bribed to do so because you have now an incentive to take the risk of being accused of corruption because you are actually corrupt and when you get caught you have the money to bribe the people who caught you.

Weird situation!