INDIA NEEDS LOKPAL

[AGAINST]
We all want a corruption free nation. But the fact of the matter is, is it reall
y possible to have a corruption free nation?Good Morning everybody.I,C.Lakshmi N
arayana of class 9thB stand before you to convince you that india does not need
a Lokpal.
Lets start from the basics .As we have studied in civics; the country has three
main organs- the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The legislature m
akes statements of laws that the executive needs to follow and the judiciary sees
to it that the rules are followed by the executive.
Now corruption is a major problem and the first thing that comes to our mind is
why did the legislature not make any rules for the executive and later be enforc
ed by the judiciary onto the executive? Actually the legislature has provided us
many acts against the spread of corruption, in the government, such as:
Prevention of corruption act, 1988
Indian Penal Code, 1860
The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002
And if there such acts why is india still a corrution stricken country?Lets firs
t think how the government tried to remove corruption in the first place.The onl
y thing it will do as usual is to set up some other govermental institution to d
o the same.Thus the birth of many institutions responsible for inquiring, invest
igating and prosecuting corruption took place, namely,the Central Vigilance Comm
ission (CVC), the Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI) and the state Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).
The CVC is a statutory body that supervises corruption cases in government depa
rtments.
The CBI and state ACBs investigate cases related to corruption under the Preven
tion of
Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code.
Now i urge you to recollect that the CBI,CVC and ACB,all are governmental author
ities.So, if you see closely,the government setup organisations to find mistakes
of the government itself.Funny ,right.

I believe the Government cannot check the activities of the Government. It is li
ke having a class monitor. The class monitor never complains about his friends,
he only complains about his enemies. This, my friends, is the major failing of t
hese three institutions. The CBI,ACB and the CVC have failed to clean out our sy
stem because they are unwilling to investigate or even take action against the p
eople in the Government as they themselves are part of the Government; they them
selves are part of this system.
Realizing this defect, the Administrative Reform Committee was set up in 1966. T
he committee submitted a report on Resolution of Public Grievances. The report
contained recommendations for the setting up of two institutions, to be
designated the Lokpal and the Lokayukta. The Lokpal will look into complain
ts against administrative acts of Ministers and Secretaries to Government-at
the Centre and in the States. The Lokayukta, one to be appointed in e
ach State and one at the Centre, will look into complaints against the
administrative acts of other authorities. Lokayuktas were essentially civil
or non- governmental bodies. Hence, it was believed that by passing this Act, t
he judiciary will be called in to check into the activities of the executive i.e
. our Government. Lokayuktas are, at present, operating in almost 18 states. And
, it is sad to know that their performance has not brought any positive impact.
The question is, if all these institutions have successively failed, what makes
you say with conviction that Lokpal can succeed? What makes you say India needs
a Lokpal?
If it really were possible, that having a Lokpal would give us a corruption- fre
e society, than does not that imply that the existence of a judiciary guarantees
us a crime- free society?
In the end I would like to say this my friends that ,Corruption is like chewing
gum. Yes, corruption is like chewing gum. The more you try to pull it off with f
orce, the more it will stick, the more it will spread. And, in more than forty y
ears of our more than fifty year independent history, this fact is being proved
over and over again.
Lokpal does not translate into a corruption free society. What we want is not Lo
kpal, what we want is a corruption free India.
By supporting Anna Hazare we did not show that WE WANT LOKPAL, what we did show wa
s that WE DO NOT WANT CORRUPTION. Those T-shirts that came out during the Anna Haz
are movement did not read, INDIA NEEDS LOKPAL, they read, INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION.
We DO NOT need a Lokpal. We need an Attitude Adjustment. We need a Mental Revoluti
on, starting from the grass-roots, filtering through to the top, so that people
at the top realize that we are sick and tired of corruption. This mental revolut
ion is the key to having a corruption free India.
By,
C.Lakshmi Narayana, 9th B.