Lokpal
Towards a basket of Anti Corruption and Grievence Redress Measures
The purpose of this exercise is to present to the government a well thought out and widely discussed set of measures that could be adopted to prevent and control corruption, especially at high places, and to effectively redress grievances, thereby hoping that they become less frequent. Such measures could include the enactment of one or more laws in order to create the required institutions and authorities, the amendment of existing laws and practices, and the strengthening of existing institutions.
The concerns and issues that need to be kept in mind while formulating the anti-corruption and grievance redress measures include:
1. Avoiding the concentration of too much power, especially unaccountable power, in any one institution or authority.
2. Ensuring that no one institution is so large that its management and control becomes a problem.
3. Avoiding the centralization of functions, instead promoting decentralization, geographically and across levels.
4. Recognising that if a core system has been corrupted, there is no option but to clean it up. Setting up a parallel decision making process is unlikely to help and such a parallel system is likely to itself get corrupted.
5. In any case, initial complaints must lie with each public authority, and they must be given an opportunity of setting their own house in order. Only appeals against what are seen as unsatisfactory responses should come to the proposed independent bodies.
6. Institutions and authorities should not be overwhelmed but should be so designed that they can deliver results within a reasonable time frame.
7. The basic framework of the Constitution need not be challenged and solutions could be found that are within the framework of the Constitution.
8. In order to ensure that the proposed institutions and authorities are themselves credible and not prone to mutual back-scratching, circular powers of oversight must be avoided where institutions and authorities oversee each other’s functioning and integrity.
9. In order to ensure efficacy and independence of an institution, it must be given adequate powers and resources to both investigate complaints and prosecute cases.
10. The institutions must be financially, administratively and legally independent of those whom it is called upon to investigate and prosecute.
11. Irrational constraints to the power to investigate or prosecute should not be allowed.
12. However, institutions and processes must be fair to both the complainant and the accused, and ensure that the honest officer is not harassed through this system.
13. Each institution itself must be accountable in the same manner that it seeks to make other institutions accountable.
14. Appointments to these institutions must be done transparently and in a participatory manner, so as to minimize the chances of the wrong sorts of people getting in.
15. The functioning of each of these institutions and authorities must also be transparent, while protecting whistle blowers and respecting legitimate privacy and other concerns, as laid out in the RTI Act. Enhances efforts, under Section 4 and even outside, need to be made to ensure platforms for citizens’ information systems as well as interventions where citizens can make informed choices.
16. The window of opportunity currently available, because of the widespread public sentiment against corruption, must be respected and fully utilized to bring in these measures as soon as possible.
17. Different approaches from Citizens’ Charter towards building a comprehensive set of entitlements for citizens, both in service delivery as well as democratic rights, are required. This in any case should be a bottom up approach
18. Social audits and its lessons emerging from the grassroots- particularly under the statutory requirement under the MGNREGA, need to be studied so that the same principles can be applied to much larger and higher levels of decision making. In other words, how can there be public audits of Government expenditure in large contracts such as the 2G. In addition, policy decisions also need to be audited, not just as part of the Pre Legislative Process but also de facto, to review their impact.
Following from these principles, some or all of the following measures can be considered.
1. Amending the existing, or drafting a new, Lokpal and Lokayukta bill, to set up a Lokpal for the Central Government and a Lokayukta in each of the states, that would receive and investigate complaints about corruption relating to all elected representatives, including the Prime minister, Chief Ministers, Central and state Ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs, elected councilors, etc, and to prosecute those against whom sufficient evidence is found. They would also have the power to investigate and prosecute any civil servant or any other individual who is co-accused in any complaint where one of the accused is an elected representative.
2. Amending the Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill, that is currently before the government, to ensure that the judiciary is also made effectively and appropriately accountable, without compromising its independence from the executive or the integrity of its functions.
3. Strengthening the institution of the CVC by removing the “single directive” and providing the institution of the CVC with adequate investigative and prosecutor powers and resources. Creating similar independent institution for each of the states.
4. Drafting an act that provides for the setting up and functioning of grievance redress commissions at the centre and in each of the states, with powers to have detailed citizen’s charters prepared for each public authority, and to ensure that the obligations of each public authority, as laid down in the citizen’s charter, is fulfilled. The Grievance Redress Commissions could be linked to the RTI Act and also to recent laws (in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh) providing for the imposition of penalty on officials who do not meet the prescribed time frames for providing services to the public. The experience of the Delhi Grievance Redress Commission could also be instructive.
5. To deal with corruption complaints and grievances at the district and sub-district level, especially in the rural areas, special powers will have to be given to the Lokayukta, the proposed state Vigilance Commissions, and the Grievance Redress Commissions. They would have to institutionalize social audits and develop other decentralized strategies, so that complaints and grievances could be dealt with speedily and in a decentralized, participatory and transparent manner.
6. Though each of these institutions and authorities will function transparently and will have to be accountable to the public for their actions (and inactions) through strong and effective accountability measures, they will also each have a provision and an obligation to protect whistle blowers, both from within and outside the government.
An option that can be considered is that only one law be enacted that would contain all these proposed institutions and measures. However, the institutions must be separate and independent of each other.
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