T he proposal for an anti-corruption ombudsman for the higher echelons of the government was floated by the then Union law minister Ashoke Sen in the early 1960s. The first Jan Lokpal Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha in 1969 but failed to get through the Rajya Sabha. Since then, it remained the great mirage of Indian politics. It was 50 years after the Bill was first introduced that it was passed in 2013. However, it still remains on paper, reflecting the aversion of India’s political class to being put under judicial scanner.
The recent judgment of the Supreme Court has now left the government with no alibi to delay the appointment of the Lokpal.
The Supreme Court has rejected all the excuses made by the government in this regard. It will now have to appoint the Lokpal who will look into the corruption charges against senior officials. It is no secret that the government has not been sincere in its approach to the Lokpal Bill enacted in 2013 by the then UPA government.
It is not that the UPA was enthusiastic about it. In fact, it did everything possible not to enact it. Finally, a powerful agitation forced it to come forward with the Bill. It goes without saying that the campaign played a major role in the victory of the BJP in 2014. Most people saw the UPA government as an epitome of corruption, the benefit of which went to the BJP.
During the Anna Hazare movement, before the passage of the Lokpal Bill by the UPA government in 2013, the BJP was a strong supporter of the Lokpal movement. Ordinarily speaking, the Narendra Modi government should have shown enthusiasm to appoint the Lokpal.
Far from that, it has been doing everything possible to delay the appointment. Under the Act, a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition, the Speaker, the Chief Justice of India and an eminent jurist should appoint a Lokpal.
Since the Congress did not win 10 per cent of the seats to claim the status of the Leader of Opposition for its parliamentary party leader, the government claimed that the selection committee was incomplete and hence no appointment could be made.
A simple solution would have been to change the law to replace the term “Leader of Opposition” to leader of the single largest Opposition party. This could have been done in no time but the government showed little interest in the matter.
The government dithered.
It was against this backdrop that a group called Common Cause and others approached the Supreme Court.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi repeated the same old arguments in the apex court. Judges could see through the game and have allowed the selection committee to go ahead without a Congress nominee. In short, the absence of a Leader of Opposition should not be used as an excuse not to appoint the Lokpal.
The selection committee can appoint an eminent jurist to be a member of the committee which will select the Lokpal.
The court has left it to the legislature to amend the law if it felt the need to. The point it wanted to emphasise was that a law as important as the Lokpal law should not suffer. The fact that Narendra Modi as chief minister did not show much interest to have a Lokayukta should not be overlooked.
As corruption bothers the nation like nothing else, the sooner an ombudsman-like institution is appointed the better it will be for the nation. However, it remains to be seen how the government acts after the Supreme Court’s latest observations.
The political class is wary of an all-powerful ombudsman with no accountability.
The reason for this aversion is not far to seek. The Lokpal Act has invested the inquiry and prosecution wings of the Lokpal. It will have the powers presently exercised by the CBI, which functions under the Central government. This is the last thing that the political executive is willing to concede.
In fact, the Modi government has already started diluting the provisions of the Lokpal Act in subtle but telling ways. For instance, it stipulated that Section 44—dealing with disclosure of assets of public servants—was to be operationalised, irrespective of appointment of the Lokpal.
The amended Finance Bill, passed in the Budget Session of Parliament, prevents the asset disclosure provision from taking effect.
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