Comment: The very people whom we pay bribes have been kept out of the Lokpal Bill
Neither would we pay a few rupees to the PM to get an electricity connection or regularise one that was once upon a time provided by a large-hearted lineman after pocketing part of our earnings.
While the media has been focusing on how angry the Civil Society members were last night after the five wise men from the government's side told them over tea and snacks that the Prime Minister cannot be brought under the purview of the Lokpal, one point that did not catch much attention was that babus below the rank of joint secretaries have also been bracketed with the PM and the higher judiciary.
A large world thriving on corruption, bribery and kickbacks has been kept out of the purview of the Lokpak. Officers, clerks and others who make our lives miserable by demanding bribes for every movement of files and dog-eared papers from one desk to another have been left out of the Lokpal's jurisdiction. The justification: there are provisions of law to take care of them!
So, the Lokpal Bill that is being drafted will not have the PM, the higher judiciary, the honourable Members of Parliament and all government servants above the rank of joint secretary. That would leave just 2000 odd officers who could be investigated by the Lokpal. Big deal!
When the five wise men - Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Veerappa Moily and Salman Khursheed - presented the enlightened proposals that were 'in tune with the Constitution, the jaws of the civil society members dropped.
Justice Hegde added: Are we creating Lokpal for investigating corruption of such a few officers? Was this the purpose of such a big anti-corruption movement in India?
So, next time you pay a bribe to a government servant for either getting your property registered or for getting a document, you have two options: go home and gulp your pride, anger and disgust; or lodge a complaint against the clerk or babu with the higher authorities and wait for eternity.
The government has given a very strange logic for keeping babus out: that the Lokpal will be flooded with complaints and make it dysfunctional.
Well, dysfunctional is the new mantra that the five senior ministers have discovered. It is precisely for this reason that the Prime Minister too has been kept out of the bill. The PM will be hit by a dysfunctional syndrome if a complaint of corruption is lodged against him.
So who will investigate the PM and the MPs? The Central Bureau of Investigation that comes under the PM and the Cabinet. The Civil Society almost agreed to this too, but on one valid condition: give complete autonomy to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). Again the government said 'No'.
It appears that the Prime Minister does not want to be investigated by an independent body but will get himself investigated by CBI, which is directly under his own control. Also, CBI has been misused by every successive government to arm twist politically inconvenient opponents. Government perhaps wants to continue doing that, said the Civil Society.
"In the draft bill prepared by the government in January this year, PM was covered, though with some exceptions. Today, they wanted PM to be completely out of Lokpal's investigations. This was shocking for us. They said that if any enquiry starts against the PM, the PM would lose all authority to govern and take decisions."
Prashant Bhushan reminded that in Bofors case also, the then PM was under scanner. But that did not deter him from taking decisions. Chidambaram said that the PM's position would be weakened if there were allegations against him every other day. He was reminded that an unsubstantiated complaint would not be entertained. A seven member bench of Lokpal would first hear that complaint and decide whether there was an adequate prima facie evidence against the PM. If there were none, the complaint would be dismissed. However, government did not agree.
On the judiciary, the Civil Society members said: "We reminded them (govt) that all that we were asking for was power to a seven member bench of Lokpal to decide whether an FIR should be registered against a judge or not. Today, only Chief Justice of India has the power to give that permission. And despite so much evidence against so many judges in public domain, permission had been given only in one case in the last 20 years. In the meeting held on May 7, Prashant Bhushan had even told Chidambaram how Chidambaram himself had sought permission to register FIR against Justice Sen Gupta of Kolkata High Court. Permission was sought from the then Chief Justice of India, Justice Venkatachaliah, who is very well known for his integrity. However, even Justice Venkatachaliah did not give permission. Was the evidence against Justice Sen Gupta not strong enough? The strength of the evidence can be gauged from the fact that Justice Sen Gupta was raided and arrested soon after he retired because after retirement, permission of CJI was not required.
"However, the government did not agree saying it would compromise the independence of judiciary. We said that the independence of judiciary was compromised under the present system which was encouraging corruption. Government said that judiciary should be dealt under Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, which was pending in Parliament. We told them that the said Bill was very bad and would end up protecting corrupt judges rather than punishing them. Also, interestingly, the said Bill does not even talk of punishing and prosecuting "corruption" of judges. It only talks of enquiring against their "misbehaviour". The government said that they would also include corruption in the said bill. Then we said, if you want to include judiciary's corruption in that bill, let this committee decide on drafting that Bill also. To that they refused. They said - you give your suggestions and we will recommend them to the Standing committee. This means that the government wants to include judiciary in a weak and ineffective Bill and does not want their corruption to be dealt through a strong and effective mechanism.
Similarly, MPs bribery inside Parliament will not be covered. If an MP takes bribe to vote or ask questions in Parliament, this would not be covered under Lokpal. Only his conduct outside will be covered. What does an MP do outside Parliament? Just recommend projects out of his Constituency fund. There too, he merely recommends and the project is executed by the officers. Therefore, effectively, all MPs would be outside the purview of Lokpal."
"We request the prime minister and (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi to say whether this is the official stand of the government or just the stand of these five ministers?" a furious Kejriwal asked on a TV channel.
He added: "We are not ready for a weak Lokpal bill. This country is not ready for a weak Lokpal bill."
Angry and upset civil society members slammed the government: "Definitely government's intentions are suspect. Please prepare yourself for the next huge movement in the country. We will go to the next few meetings. We will try our best, till the last moment, to persuade the government to agree to a strong and effective Lokpal Bill. But if the government disagrees, we should be ready to take to the streets".