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exclude the judges, provided Judicial Accountability Bill comes into being. Wisely so: the independence of this organ cannot be placed under strain; a Lokpal whose decisions are subject to judicial review cannot be allowed to subject the judiciary to its investigation. Such inclusion would not have passed constitutional scrutiny by the courts. That said, there is little doubt that the judiciary needs to be covered by an institution similar to the Lokpal that can investigate, prosecute and recover illgotten assets; that body may have an a ltered procedure and larger composition of judges. As regards MPs, they are protected by the Constitution in respect of anything said or any vote given in the House; Anna’s group may not be able to make headway here. As regards the prime minister, while practical reasons exist for exclusion emanating from the fear of destabilising government, it is difficult to resist the a rgument that no one should be beyond scrutiny for corrupt acts. Voices within the government and across the political spectrum argue for his inclusion; it is quite likely that this point will go to Hazare.

Three other major issues relating to the ambit of the Lokpal’s coverage have seen deep differences not just between the government and Hazare, but also with Aruna Roy’s team. On each of these, expectedly, Hazare wants the Lokpal to have the widest jurisdiction; the others want the body to be focused on corruption in high places, and different mechanisms to be devised for lower levels of corruption and other forms of misgovernance. In particular, the NCPRI has a more nuanced approach here. While the Hazare team may claim that the lead up to Parliament’s resolution shows that their stand has been accepted in toto, this will be resisted on the argument that Parliament has only accorded broad approval to bringing these categories under the anti-corruption scanner, not necessarily under the Lokpal as desired by the Anna team. It does seem necessary that there should be some more debate and discussion on these crucial aspects; after all, it cannot be denied that there was tremendous public pressure on the government and Parliament during the last days of the Hazare fast. A fuller consideration seems warranted, and should not be avoided on the argument that a parliamentary expression of the “sense of the House” constitutes a done deal on each aspect of every issue.

Overburdening the Lokpal

There can be no doubt that corruption exists at all levels of officialdom, and needs to be checked. However, a Lokpal hand ling all complaints of corruption will find itself overburdened with this huge task; this will make it lose its focus on high-level corruption. Separate treatment is required for the multicrore political and bureaucratic scamsters, rather than equating them with the village patwari and police constable. Bringing the top leadership under control is imperative now, and this cleansing will itself dramatically improve performance at the lower levels. Being the watchdog over senior officers is difficult but manageable, to oversee honesty of the entire lot of government officers will make the Lokpal unwieldy and inefficient. Moreover, there is a widely articulated and legitimate fear that an all-encompassing body will be gargantuan in size and power, a recipe for authoritarian abuse and which may even affect the constitutional scheme of governance. A wiser course will be to permit the Lokpal to f ocus on the top leadership, improve the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to handle corruption at the lower level, but with the rider that the Lokpal should exercise a s upervisory jurisdiction over the CVC and also have the power to itself take up such cases which have wider implications.

It makes little sense to have an anticorruption body at the centre, and not to have similar legislation for officers, ministers and legislators of the states. The argument has been advanced that the federal structure of the Constitution precludes Parliament legislating for the states. As has been ably pointed out by Shanti Bhushan, the former law minister, in an article published in The Hindu of 6 September 2011, an anti-corruption law for the entire country would fall within the domain of Parliament under the constitutional scheme of demarcation of legislative power. After all, the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 is a parliamentary enactment, and it covers all officers irrespective of whether they serve under central or state governments. There may thus not be much substance in this objection to the nationwide coverage of the Lokpal if its focus is on dealing with corruption.

Creating a Frankenstein?

The third sticky point seems to be on the citizen’s charter and redressal of grievances. Every public authority is to prepare a charter enumerating its duties to the citizen. Failure to perform such a duty invites punishment, and a direction to so perform. Such charters will come from every government department having any degree of interaction with the public – welfare schemes, the public distribution systems, police, railway tickets, road repair, and indeed most aspects of our lives. Monitoring this obligation is a task multifold larger than policing all civil servants. Fears expressed over one Lokpal overseeing all government servants for integrity will grow manifold when such a Lokpal oversees all government functioning. L ittle doubt that the term Frankenstein has found usage in this connection. Again here, handling complaints of non-performance of the charters will make the Lokpal lose its focus and effectiveness as an anti-corruption fighting body. It must be stressed, time and

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again, that the country needs a tough official to deal with corruption, that if this is not done well our development objectives will come to naught considering the magnitude of scams; the moral fibre of public life will plummet to below zero figures, and we will be ruled indefinitely by those who get into public office to misuse it. Therefore, while by all means we should recognise that lower level corruption should be tackled and public grievances should be redressed, we should not make the mistake of entrusting all these functions to one body, which will result in no task b eing well done, and the body itself b ecoming another source of our problems. A separate grievance redressal authority can provide the administrative relief for non-implementation of the charters, i ncluding punishment for wilful failure.

While a couple of points mentioned above would call for reconsideration by the Hazare team of its position, this would in no way detract from the enormous contribution made by them in placing the fight against corruption squarely in the forefront of the national agenda, showing the way with its focused draft and the achievement of getting government to a ccept most of its points.

In addition, there are some other aspects contained in the Jan Lokpal Bill of the Anna group which deserve mention. One is the protection to be given to whistle-blowers. Since the disclosures principally pertain to corruption in mega amounts and in high places, it stands to reason that the Lokpal itself should bring them under its protective umbrella. Another innovation to encourage disclosure is the power of the Lokpal to give immunity to the bribe-giver, if the information be true and he is willing to give up the i llegitimate benefit gained. Another wellthought-out set of practical measures is designed to combat the scrouge of well-meaning legislation – the tactics of delay in our courts. So Anna Hazare’s experts provide that the trial should be held on a day-to-day basis and should be completed within a maximum period of 12 months, that sufficient number of special courts will be set up exclusively for corruption trials, that the high courts will create special benches to speedily dispose of appeals within six months. (Yet another measure that may be thought of here is to mandate that the trial cannot be held up by filing appeals against any interim or procedural order.)

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Systemic correction is also provided – apart from dealing with the individual offender, the Lokpal may take action to prevent the ongoing incidence of corruption; thus if the 2G scam was investigated early enough, further spectrum loss could have been averted. No government officer shall be eligible to take up jobs or assignments with organisations which he had dealt with in an official capacity. All contracts and property transactions of public authorities must be by public auction or tenders, unless specially warranted otherwise. These, as well as agreements dealing with natural resources, must be put up on a website. These aspects have received little public attention, but they are crucial in adding up to an effective anti-corruption body.

Transparency in Committee

The parliamentary committee now discussing all the draft bills should have a timeframe, it must give civil society representatives full opportunity to participate, and televise its meetings. Visual transparency is as important as access to the written word. The committee should realise that it does not have a clean slate to write upon, and except for a couple of matters, it has but to add flesh to the structure and scheme already agreed upon. However, the muscle is as important as the frame, and the devil is in the details, and there are any number of politicians and bureaucrats who would use every

trick in the book to scuttle this enactment. Therefore civil society has to stay vigilant and focused. It has also to stay united.

Differences within Civil Society?

This last aspect is a source of worry. There are disturbing signs of discordant views and personal differences between members representing civil society. There are complaints of claims of proprietary rights of representing the public on the Lokpal issue. The space, forum and opportunity to debate and discuss seems restricted. Civil society groups deserve thanks for having done so much, but will not escape censure if they let their differences prejudice the common cause. And indeed it does not take much to resolve the points on which they are at issue. Longterm i nterests should be borne in mind, and there must be a willingness to give and take in order to move ahead. The adage that the best is the enemy of the good should be recalled to realise that stubborn refusal to compromise on anything less than what one deems perfect may only r esult in nothing being achieved. And there should be civility of discourse; we have seen exchanges and expressions which do only harm and no good. As m ediators say, “don’t poison the well from which you must drink to get your settlement”. India has an unparalleled opportunity to come up with an anti-corruption law which will detect, punish and deter. Let us not lose it.