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Posted on 07 December 2011 |
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The New Lokpal Bill
TEHELKA accesses what the 31 member Standing Committee will present in Parliament On Friday
Revati Laul
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Thousands had come together in response to the call given by Anna Hazare to support a Jan Lokpal Bill. |
ON FRIDAY, the Parliament and the nation will finally get to see what two and a half months of deliberation has produced: a freshly minted Lokpal bill, tabled. The result of what a 31 member Standing Committee representing the Parliament has deliberated, dissected and finally arrived at. TEHELKA accesses what the committee will present. The 199-page draft is a mix of what the Jan Lokpal suggested, what its contenders in the National Campaign for Peoples' Right to Information (NCPRI) suggested and what naysayers shouted above the general din. Many will find this vastly improved from what the Government attempted almost exactly a year ago—in December 2010. Vastly improved also, some may find, from the Jan Lokpal version suggested to curb corruption. But of course, even this version does have its flaws—though overall, it would be fair to say, in a wildly divergent field full of shards of glass, this is probably the closest the Parliament representatives from a spectrum of parties will possibly ever come to a consensus, even though once the bill reaches the floor of the house, it is bound to create a few ripples. Here is what it says.
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Chanting “Anna tum aage bado hum tumhare saath hain (March on Anna, we are with you),” people joined the protest in the hope that the Lokpal will have a solution to their problems. |
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The Lokpal will be a Constitutional body and a Federal institution which means it will simultaneously create a Lokpal at the Centre to look at corruption and also activate a uniform structure for Lokayuktas across all states, with more or less the same rules applying across the country to all.
The most contentious question—will the Prime Minister be left out or subject to this new anti-corruption mechanism, the new draft has come up with perhaps its cleverest answer. Which is no answer. Instead, it leaves it to the Parliament to pick between three options.
Option 1: The Prime Minister is completely excluded from being examined for corruption by the Lokpal.
Option 2: He is examined only after his term of office is over.
Option 3: The PM is examined while still in office, but with many caveats thrown in like issues of national security and national interest.
AN ISSUE that is likely to force Anna’s camp back onto the streets, is the fact that in this version, the Lokpal only examines Chief Ministers, Union ministers, MPs, MLAs and the upper levels of bureaucracy—or class A and B officers for corruption. It leaves class C and D officers to be examined by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). However, those who weren’t sold on the idea that everyone must come under the Lokpal, those who felt that it would indeed be a bad idea and self defeating for the entire gamut of government servants to be examined by one body; will be happy to note – this draft splits the work up. Higher bureaucracy—2.56 lakh people as the draft suggests, will be under the Lokpal radar. The CVC and its counterparts in the states will have to undergo a metamorphosis. The draft suggests, group C and D officers will be examined here, but in the new and improved Vigilance commissions, they will have independent authority from the administration and—to quote the preface note—a “reporting requirement to the Lokpal.”
The new draft also suggests the setting up of a separate Grievance Redressal mechanism—so it’s clearly heard the Aruna Roy and the NCPRI version of what should be done, loud and clear. They had suggested that every government department put out citizens’ charters listing by when they are meant to provide a particular service—ration cards within 30 days for instance. If the task is not done in that time, anyone and everyone has the right to knock on the doors of their nearest Grievance Redressal officer—a de-centralised institution; and complain. Undue delays in delivery of services will be interpreted as corruption in this new draft.
Here too, the Anna team has diverged with Aruna and the NCPRI and had wanted Grievance Redressal to come directly under the Lokpal. Another reason for them to agitate? Friday will certainly tell.
Another way in which this new draft seems to bend more towards Aruna Roy and the NCPRI’s architecture is that judges will not be examined by the Lokpal, but by a separate Judicial Accountability Bill. It also proposes that a National Judicial Commission be set up to appoint judges, with constitutional amendments if necessary, claiming that this would be KEY to a much needed overhaul of our present judicial accountability and of the system of justice.
Also, there will be a separate Whistleblowers Protection Act, to be passed simultaneously as the Lokpal Bill—another leaf out of Aruna Roy’s branch of suggestions.
THERE IS ALSO the set of debates been raging for a good part of this year, in and out of Parliament—mostly out, since the Parliament hasn’t really been in session for the most part. That is the question of how the Lokpal will do its work. The new Bill suggests that when someone files a complaint of corruption, the first line of investigation will be that of the Lokpal. For this, a whole bevy of investigators will be created and the Lokpal will have its own investigative wing. But, and this is bound to rile Anna’s team, once the preliminary investigation is done, the case will be handed over to the CBI’s anti-corruption wing for the second, more detailed investigation. If this second investigation confirms that corruption had taken place, it will then hand over the prosecution to a special Lokpal judge. This whole exercise, the new draft says, is to ensure that the Lokpal doesn’t become the hydra-headed monster or some kind of all powerful `Stasi’ that was feared by many who read the Jan Lokpal version of the bill with these adjectives in their heads. It was to ensure that the constitution’s separation of powers of the executive arm of the government from its legislature and judiciary remains intact. Does this mean though that the real investigation of corruption charges will happen under the CBI? And confirm Team Anna’s fears—this is the Government’s way of protecting itself because it’s the Government that appoints the CBI and so it won’t really be independent? NO claim the writers of this draft. They have written in provisions for the CBI to be independent from the administration in its carrying out of anti-corruption investigations.
How effectively has this been written in? How independent will this really be? These are questions that will certainly be raised on the floor of the Parliament on Friday.
There was also some heat in the last few months over who should choose the Lokpal. This draft suggests a lean but effective five-member selection committee consisting of the following:
The Prime Minister
The Chief Justice of India
The Lok Sabha Speaker
The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a fifth, “eminent Indian” chosen by a trio of the Comptroller and Auditor General (the CAG), the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and the Union Public Service Commission Chairman (UPSC Chairman).
This group of five will be helped along by a search committee of “at least seven members, 50% of which will be SC/ST, OBC and other minorities, including women.” The search committee’s choice will, however, not be binding on the Big Five.
There is one last issue, likely to be a major sticking point, especially because of the entire list of recommendations in the new draft, this one in particular has a rather baffling logic. And it is the issue of whether or not NGOs, corporate institutions and the media should be examined by the Lokpal. The answer this draft arrives at is yes, but only those institutions which get above a certain denomination of central government funding and foreign funding via FCRA accounts or accounts registered under the Foreign Control Regulation Act. The draft underlines over and over again the fact that ONLY institutions of this nature, since they get public money, will be held accountable under the Lokpal. Perfectly sound logic according to those who drafted this Bill. However, there is one rather big, baffling issue here. Institutions that get either public or foreign funding possibly run into lakhs – if not nearly every NGO and corporate body and media house. So if the logic in this new Lokpal avatar is to create a manageable institution, by making the Lokpal deal with only group A and B officers and leaving the CVC to deal with 30 lakh officers from the lower bureaucracy; then how does that logic square with suddenly making the Lokpal responsible for handling so many private institutions? The logic of sloughing off excess fat at one end and then making it obese at the other, is a big puzzle and one that is perhaps going to take up some time, when this new draft is minted and put on display.
For now, its drafters have told TEHELKA, they have worked tirelessly and through weekends, and have 40 hours of consultation and 16 rounds of meetings; 10 hours of which were with Team Anna alone. However, on an issue that has kept the nation awake and puzzled for an entire year, the only statistic that will really count are the AYES and NOES on the floor of the house, if this draft makes it that far.
Revati Laul is a Special Correspondent with Tehelka.
revati@tehelka.com
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