Political Career for Indian Youth- Jan Lokpal Bill- Theme 5-Finacial Matters

Issues for Consideration and Recommendations for Improvement

Theme 5: Financial Matters
Issue 1: Financing the Lokpal

The Draft Bill seeks to provide the proposed Lokpal with three sources of funding. Clause 4(4) provides for the charging of all administrative expenses of the Lokpal including salaries, allowances and pensions on the Consolidated Fund of India. According to Clause 14(3) the monies required for meeting the financial and human resource expenses will be decided in a meeting between the Lokpal and the Prime Minister. The Government will be duty bound to provide these resources. Clause 4(5) provides for the creation of a separate Lokpal Fund in which penalties and fines imposed by the Lokpal will be deposited. 10% of the loss of public money recovered under Clause 19 will also be deposited under this fund. According to Clause 28A 50% of the proceeds from the auction of the property of public servants forfeited to the Lokpal will be deposited in this fund and can be used for its administrative expenses. Some of these principles of funding are questionable for the following reasons:

a) While it is good practice to create a separate fund into which monies will be deposited for use by the Lokpal, limiting the discussions on the budget to the Prime Minister is undesirable. The Lokpal is currently envisaged as a statutory authority created by Parliament. Logically, the Lokpal should be made answerable to Parliament for its perfromance. So Parliament should have a role to play in assessing the performance of the Lokpal. The Draft Bill should provide for a clear procedure for Parliament to scrutinize the performance of the Lokpal.

b) Under the General Financial Rules (GFR) applicable to the Government of India all fines levied and collected and the proceeds of auctioning forfeited properties must be deposited in the treasury (Rule 16). Similarly the proceeds of an auction will have to be deposited with the public exchequer. The absorption of funds in the manner provided in the Draft Bill will require amendment to the GFR. However this practice is not advisable as it amounts to financing the Lokpal with monies not sanctioned by Parliament. This is contradictory to the principle of financial accountability of all public authorities to Parliament.

It is advisable that the manner of funding the Lokpal be debated more widely and solutions be found to ensure that the autonomy of the Lokpal is protected while at the same time making it accountable to Parliament for every paisa spent.

Recommendation:

The Draft Bill may be suitably amended after a wider debate on the manner in which the Lokpal must be funded.

Issue 2: Remuneration for Lokpal staff

According to Clause 23(7) of the Draft Bill the staff and officers of the Lokpal will be entitled to such pay and allowances which may be different and more than the ordinary pay scales in the Central Government as may be decided by the Lokpal in consultation with the Prime Minister. While the intention of this provision is to ensure that the Lokpal staff are not corrupted by extraneous influences the formulation of this provision may fall foul of Article 14 of the Constitution which mandates equality for every person before the law. Instead the existing Clause 23(3) is adequate for the purpose of deciding the pay structure for the staff of the Lokpal.

Recommendation:

Clause 23(7) may be dropped.