The Jan Lokpal Bill

Corruption in India has grown to alarming proportions because of policies that have created enormous
incentives for its proliferation, coupled with the lack of an effective institution that can investigate and
prosecute the corrupt. Corruption is both personal and institutional. The majority of politicians and civil
servants are corrupt. Moreover, under the garb of liberalisation and privatisation, India has adopted
policies by which natural resources and public assets (mineral resources, oil and gas, land, spectrum,
and so on) have been allowed to be privatised, at a fraction of their value, without transparency or a
process of public auctioning.

Jan Lokpal Bill

The Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizens' ombudsman Bill) is an Indian draft anti-corruption bill that would create
the Jan Lokpal, an independent body similar to the Election Commission with the power to prosecute
politicians and bureaucrats without prior Government permission.
Drafted by former Supreme Court Justice Shanti Bhushan, retired IPS officer Kiran Bedi, Justice N.
Santosh Hegde, advocate Prashant Bhushan, former chief election commissioner J. M. Lyngdoh in
consultation with the leaders of the India Against Corruption movement - prominent ones being Anna
Hazaare and Arvind Kejriwal - the bill proposes the institution of the office of Lokpal (Ombudsman) at the
center and local Lokayukta at the state level. The bill is designed to create an effective anti-corruption
and grievance redressal system that effectively deters corruption while providing effective protection to
whistle-blowers.

The India Against Corruption Movement and Anna Hazaare’s Role

IAC is a people's movement to demand comprehensive reforms of anti-corruption systems in India and is
lead by several eminent citizens like Anna Hazaare, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Medha Patkar, etc.
In April 2011, Anna Hazaare gave a call to the nation to press the Government for the enactment of Jan
Lokpal bill. In hundreds of cities, towns and villages across the length and breadth of the country, people
took the initiative and formed teams for supporting Annaji's indefinite fast. NRIs in various countries
organized a Dandi March 2 in support of the protests in India. Hundreds of people fasted along with
Annaji in his fast at home / office / event venues on the 5th April 2011. These protests were in the same
spirit as Mahatma Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement. The protests ended with Annaji calling off
his indefinite fast on 9 April 2011 with the assurance by the Government to constitute a committee to
enact Jan LokPal bill. However this people's mass movement has to sustain its steam to ensure that
Government doesn’t renege on its promises.

Key features of the proposed Jan Lokpal Bill

1. To establish a central Government anti-corruption institution called Lokpal, supported by
Lokayukta at the state level.
2. As in the case of the Supreme Court and Cabinet Secretariat, the Lokpal will be supervised by
the Cabinet Secretary and the Election Commission. As a result, it will be completely independent
of the Government and free from ministerial influence in its investigations.
3. Members will be appointed by judges, Indian Administrative Service officers with a clean record,
private citizens and constitutional authorities through a transparent and participatory process.
4. A selection committee will invite shortlisted candidates for interviews, videorecordings of which
will thereafter be made public.
5. Every month on its website, the Lokayukta will publish a list of cases dealt with, brief details
of each, their outcome and any action taken or proposed. It will also publish lists of all cases
 received by the Lokayukta during the previous month, cases dealt with and those which are
pending.
6. Investigations of each case must be completed in one year. Any resulting trials should be
concluded in the following year, giving a total maximum process time of two years.
7. Losses caused to the Government by a corrupt individual will be recovered at the time of
conviction.
8. Government officework required by a citizen that is not completed within a prescribed time period
will result in Lokpal imposing financial penalties on those responsible, which will then be given as
compensation to the complainant.
9. Complaints against any officer of Lokpal will be investigated and completed within a month and, if
found to be substantive, will result in the officer being dismissed within two months.
10. The existing anti-corruption agencies (CVC, departmental vigilance and the anti-corruption
branch of the CBI) will be merged into Lokpal which will have complete power and authority to
independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician.
11. Whistleblowers who alert the agency to potential corruption cases will also be provided with
protection by it.

Current State of the proposed Jan Lokpal Bill

The Lokpal Bill was first introduced in parliament in 1968 and passed the Lok Sabha but failed in the
Rajya Sabha. It has been tables in the parliament on eight times on later occasions, but has never been
passed and had earned the name Old Pal’s Bill because of politicians looking after their own interests.
However this time, sensing that the nation’s multitudes have been enthused and galvanised by Anna
Hazaare's crusading zeal, the Government reached an agreement that the a committee will be set up to
draft the Jan Lokpal Bill and will have five Cabinet Ministers, with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as
chairman. Of the five members from civil society, one will be co-chairman. It was also decided that the
committee would prepare a draft law in time for it to be presented in the monsoon session of Parliament.

Criticism of the Jan Lokpal Bill

A number of commentators have pointed out that the the Jan Lokpal Bill in its draft form is at best naive
and at worst extra-constitutional. They point out the same of the IAC’s movement’s rhetoric of hanging
the politicians is dangerously anti-democratic because the politicians are all elected representatives
of millions. The prominence of godmen/swamis in the movement and the movement’s acceptance the
support of the RSS and politicians like Narendra Modi has also caused damage to the secular and
ideology-free movement.
However, the Jan Lokpal Bill is not the end itself but the means to a change of heart across the society.
Thousands of the country’s poorest die every day because of corruption, and we are all complicit in
it: politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, teachers, doctors, engineers, intellectuals, even activists and
media—if not by direct loot, then by our silent support of it.

NRIs cannot claim to have unsullied reputations because our silence and detachment from the
motherland which raised us in our formative years, causes us also to be complicit in corruption’s
atrocities. The need of the hour is to engage in the national conversation.

References for the above text: IAC’s website, The Hindu, Wikipedia and various blogs.