The Lokpal bill snippets

If the joint committee to draft the Lokpal Bill were to meet its June 30 deadline, the ministers and civil society representatives would have to thrash out a range of contentious issues. The result of the exertions will bear little fruit unless some of its key features are endorsed by the five ministers in the joint panel.

Common ombudsman for politicians and bureaucrats: Since netas and babus often collude, the Jan Lokpal is envisaged as an independent body that would have jurisdiction over both categories of public servants. It’s a major departure from the official draft in which the Lokpal’s remit is limited to the political class. If the government concedes this demand, the Central Vigilance Commission would be merged with the Lokpal

Jurisdiction over judges: Given the rise of corruption in the judiciary, the civil society Bill seeks to make judges accountable to the Lokpal. In institutional terms, this may be consistent with the principle of natural justice that nobody can be a judge in his own cause. But then, the implication of this proposal is the government would have to withdraw the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill

Turning an advisory body into an investigating and prosecuting agency:The civil society’s idea of placing a dedicated police agency at the disposal of the Lokpal would be a severe test of self-abnegation for the ministers. They would find it hard to contest the argument that while the CVC has been ineffective in the absence of coercive powers, the CBI has lacked credibility in the absence of independence. The big question is, would the ministers agree to the corruption wing of the CBI, which is a major part of that organization, being merged with the Lokpal? One option would be to widen the remit of the newly-formed National Investigation Agency so that the remaining part of the CBI, dealing with noncorruption crimes, could merge with it

Doing away with the penalty for frivolous complaints: Civil society activists are opposed to the government’s proposal of empowering the Lokpal to penalize those filing frivolous complaints. It remains to be seen whether the joint committee would be able to strike a balance between the need for accountability of public servants yet protect them from false or politically-motivated complaints

Transparency in the functioning of the Lokpal:The radical proposal of requiring the Lokpal to put in the public domain all the evidence related to corruption complaints has raised concerns even within civil society. Much to the annoyance of Hazare’s team, members of the National Advisory Council, Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander have stressed that the Lokpal, like any other public authority, should be barred from disclosing the categories of information exempted by the RTI Act

Dispensing with the government’s sanction for prosecution: Much of the impunity in corruption cases is on account of the executive prerogative of denying statutory sanction to prosecute public servants. This could prove to be one of the sticking points as the government would be loathe to give up the much-abused power to block prosecution.