 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Shekhar Singh to discuss on the Lokpal bills or bill, whichever way you look at it. Shekhar, we have already discussed the context in which all this is being discussed. What are the main provisions of the Lokpal bill in the government bill which you think are much too weak at the moment to stop corruption? The government bill as presented in parliament only covers a very small proportion of the civil servants. And there is nothing in the introduction or in the, you know, there are usually these notes which are attached with the bill, which suggests that there is any other device that the government is thinking or any other bill to cover the rest of the bureaucracy. So, now for example, central government has 42 lakh employees by their own count. This covers only group A officers which is 65,000 of those 42 lakhs. It only covers, it does not cover the prime minister for example. So, first of all, we have a problem with the coverage. We feel that every category of the civil servant and the prime minister himself should also be covered. General Lokpal bill on the other hand covers all this, but wants to put all of them under one institution. Now, we see that is not possible. So, basically to have different institutions for different class of people or class of officers. Similar for judges, these government of India bill does not talk about judges at all. The General Lokpal says judges should also be under General Lokpal. We say no, you should strengthen the accountability, judicial accountability and put it in there. So, that is the first problem. As far as the prime minister goes, General Lokpal bill says he should be there or she should be there without any qualifications. The government bill says only after they have demoted office. We are saying no, the prime minister should be there, but we have suggested three or four safeguards. One is that it has to be a full bench of the Lokpal which decides that the prime minister should be investigated on the basis of prime FAC evidence. And they must make a reference in camera to the Supreme Court where a full bench also looks at that evidence and then says yes. So, safeguards are the question. So, that it is not every day that the PM is being hauled up and one or two other such safeguards. Second, independence of the Lokpal. Now, we have seen over the years that the government has many ways of finishing the independence of an institution. In the government bill, for example, the selection committee is of nine. So, it looks very impressive. But five of those nine are either from the ruling party or from the government or nominated by the government. So, for that practical purpose is going to be a government nominee. We do not agree with that. So, we said the only way out is that you have one person from the government, the prime minister, the leader of the opposition and a judge of the Supreme Court nominated by the Chief Justice of India. So, that you have some balance and this seems to be working a little bit wherever such a system has come in. The next question is that who is going to sack or otherwise discipline the Lokpal itself? Again, independence issues come here. Government system is that you file a complaint with the government. The government will then decide whether this complaint has merit and if it has merit, it will then pass it on to the Supreme Court of Investigation. Supreme Court will recommend to the government which will then decide whether it should take action or not. That is the end of the independence of the Lokpal. So, basically a question of mutual assured destruction that is the both sides cannot proceed against each other. Absolutely. The point is that how is the Lokpal going to be answerable. Now, the general Lokpal bill has a very strange system. They say that the judges of the High Court and the Supreme Court would be answerable to the Lokpal. But the Lokpal members would be answerable to the Supreme Court. Again, a question of. So, we are saying that yes, all complaints let them go straight to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is not going to be under the Lokpal and let them hear it. So, that is the third major difference. What about the issues regarding if the Lokpal investigates, finds people have prime office cases against them that can be done. Then the government's bill, how does it look at it after that? See, the government's bill is strong on one issue and similar to the Lokpal that the Lokpal will have both the investigative and the prosecution powers. So, if the investigation and prosecution is in my hands, I can make sure that the court has no option but to find somebody guilty or find somebody not guilty. So, but we have for the moment accepted because there isn't any problem. Difference lies. The general Lokpal says that if it's not a criminal matter, but an administrative matter which attracts up to dismissal of a civil servant or minor or major penalties, the Lokpal will be authorized to do that against civil servants. Now, there are two problems with that. One is that it will require an amendment to the Constitution. This is a judge, jury, execution. That's the other problem. How can you have the same body investigating, prosecuting and giving punch? But the government's bill says that if it goes to the government, the government will decide and it doesn't have to do anything. Yeah, but then you have judicial review. See, suppose I'm a complainant and the government doesn't do anything. I can go to court of law and we are under the Lokpal dispensation, both the government bill, the general Lokpal and ours, special courts are being set up. So, you go to court of law. You have to have that because, you know, after all, let me just hear, digress a little bit. See, there are three issues here. One is that you have to, of course, control corruption. But you also have to protect honest civil servants because believe me, if you don't do that, the wily ones or the dishonest ones will never get caught, but the honest ones will always be in trouble. I can tell you the whole system of writing annual confidential reports in the government has collapsed because every officer says, if I write one adverse entry against somebody, it has to be communicated, natural justice, does that, they'll file complaints against me and then I'll be stuck forever. Thirdly, you have to make sure that the government doesn't get paralyzed after all, corruption is not the only problem, inaction is another problem. Now, there are two very dangerous clauses in the government bill. One clause is that all movements, groups, anybody who collects money from anybody, suppose you're the officer, now what does that mean? Under the Prevention of Corruption Act, it means you can be asked, please show what was your income. Otherwise, if your assets are disproportionate to your known sources of income, it's assumed that you're corrupt. Now, it's one thing for a government servant who gets a fixed salary, maintains this. Frankly, if I was asked to tell them for the last 40 years what was my income, I don't have any records here. How am I going to show? Number two, it also says that if you misuse your position, now in the government, these are defined, what you can do, what not. In fact, it's very interesting in the government bill, while they don't want to include numbers of like 42 lakhs because it's too large, therefore restricting to 65,000. They don't seem to have problems for including all and suddenly outside the government. So, the whole argument of why the net should not be wide and seems to fall here. Though they have put in one caveat that beyond above a certain level, what that level will be, we don't know. But it's also unnecessary because if you're not getting money from the government, there are other laws. If you commit fraud, there are other laws under which it should be covered. And if you're abetting a government servant, in any case, section 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act will get you into trouble. So, I don't see why it is. So, only it should, in your view, this if organizations outside the government are covered, it should really be those who receive government funds and therefore have quasi in that sense public servant role. That would be the further the government bill says this will not cover religious organizations. It specifically says, why not? And we are saying it doesn't cover corporate sector, it doesn't cover media. So, why shouldn't it? In fact, we have recommended, this is not in Jan Lokpal, but we've recommended any profit seeking organization, corporate, etc. which gets a license and order, a concession, etc, etc from the government. And this is in violation of any rule or any law provided that they can not show that we could didn't know and we couldn't have known. Then it would be assumed that they've indulged in corrupt practices. In 2G, what is clear is that companies which were not eligible got spectrum, but that doesn't help you. Under the Prevention of Corruption Act, you'll have to show that they actually bribed somebody. That's very difficult to show. That's actually the problem of the Corruption Act, probably the PCA. So, we have said that the PCA should be amended for and bring this in. The second is on the question, I believe, of the whistleblower. That means whoever makes a complaint, that minimum penalty is 2 years. Not just whistleblower. This is penalty that if anybody, not just a whistleblower, makes a complaint which is false, vexatious and frivolous, minimum prison of 2 years. But if the person is found guilty of corruption 6 months, first of all, you must prove that it's a malefied, malicious intent to harm some. So, it must be false and malefied maliciousness should be proved. And even then, a fine. So, effectively, it is in order to disarm complaints. That's the intent of it. Coming back to the Jan Lokpal bill, which is also doing the rounds, there are two very problematic issues which we haven't discussed in law. One is this so-called citizen charter, the demand that every civil servant, every government official, all this 42 lakh government employees must have a charter. This almost sounds like our old-fashioned time and motion study which is to be imposed on the workers. What we are saying is that, look, there is already citizens' charters. As you know, every department is required to have a citizen's charter. Let us fine-tune the citizen charters. Let us simply say that, look, if you are going to interact with the government on these matters, these are your rights, these are your obligations. And let's codify them so that everybody knows. This is not a Lokpal issue. It should be outside the normal understanding of an ombudsman. Absolutely. So, what we have said is that you set up a grievance redress mechanism. And we've said there are no costs involved because nowadays you have the central schemes, for example, the NREJ. 1% of the NREJ budget is earmarked for a grievance redress scheme. You have now right to food is coming in. In that, you will have right to education is coming in that. So, effectively have separate redressal mechanisms part of the department which is setting it up and funded statutorily. That would be a problem. And we've said that right down to the block level in the rural areas and the ward level in the urban areas, there will be a single office where all these central scheme grievances plus other grievances, so you don't have multiplicity of offices. Effectively, the Lokpal bill in its current from the general Lokpal bill requires according to Prashant, who we've heard requires at least 20,000 people to set it up. Do you think there is a threat that this in fact might a make it completely non-functional administering 20,000 people is not easy? And secondly, it might itself become a problem tomorrow? I frankly think that 20,000 is a huge underestimate. And let me tell you why facts and figures. Currently, the Central Vigilance Commission handles group A officer 65,000. Last year, they received 17,000 odd complaints. That's 25%. As you go down the bureaucracy number of complaints go up. If you ask any supporter of Anna today how many of the bureaucrats are corrupt, they'll say 90%. Even if they're corrupt once a year, can you imagine how much? I'm saying let's take 25% for which we have statistics. 42 lakh people means you're going to get what? You're going to get about 10 lakhs of complaints every year. The CBI standard is that one investigating body, which means that there is one investigator, this law also says of DYSP and above and two assistants can do between three and four investigating cases in a year. That is what the CBI standards are. Put that no, you got 10 lakhs, so you need two and a half lakh investigators straight off. Then we are also prosecuting. Now in the court systems that we have today and you know if you want natural justice, witnesses have to be called this, that and the other. Any one team can only prosecute about six to eight cases in a year because you have 200 working days in all that sort of a thing. So you start adding all that up. Plus then they need drivers, they need peers there. My calculation you need about 10 to 15 lakh people if it's be a single institution. So much has been talked about Karnataka Lokayut. Just the Lokayut, they have Lokayut and Uplokayut. Uplokayut looks after that. Lokayut and Uplokayut, that body, 56,000 pending cases as of now in one state, 56,000 when you had that very effective Lokayut. So effectively what you are suggesting is a much smaller ambit of this Lokpal but which has effective powers would be really the solution of the current crisis of. So what I am saying is that let us start from the top. There are other advantages. See people at senior levels are the ones who have the clout which you have to counter by having this high-powered independent Lokpal that Babu is not going to have the clout. Thirdly, they are the ones who do this complex corruption of bank accounts all over the world. So you need the abilities to be able to trace that. Secondly, if really the top is relatively free of corruption then the bottom is much more likely to be clean. That's really the issue. I agree with you that then it should be something which comes down. This is in one case trickle down the world. Unlike the economic philosophy. Let me just add one very important point. See what's happening in India and the world over today is that because people are disgusted with elected governments, they are slowly wanting to take away the function of the elected government, put them into bodies which are not part of the electoral process. And they should also not account for it. This is the problem. See tomorrow, if your Lokpal is corrupt, you can file a complaint by the Supreme Court. But suppose he's not corrupt. Suppose he's biased. Suppose he's lazy. Suppose he just doesn't work. If you get an institution which is not accountable, then the checks and balances of the Constitution are lost. But one further point, this is also middle-class fantasy that once we've elected a parliament, they'll make them accountable. Or once we make a Lokpal, they'll make them accountable. I'm afraid that for a long, long time each one of us will also have to be involved in making them accountable. Otherwise, they're not going to work. Good. I think on that note that every citizen has to intervene if things have to improve and not just camp once in a year or once in five years or just do his task in voting. I think we conclude this section of our discussion. Shekhar, I think we're going to see many more developments on this. We'll come back to you again on these issues. Thank you. Thank you very much.