Why should we not support Jan Lokpal Bill?

1. The problem is the complexity and the size of the state, Jan Lokpal just increases it
What the bill will do is that it will make the system a lot more complex and increase the size of the state, while what we need are measures to reduce its size. The state is involved in things that it should not be. Cut out licensing, permits and stupid rules that the state imposes on us and no one will need to bribe any officials to get their work done.

2. People bribe to circumnavigate rules, why create more?

The reason corruption exists is coz people need to bypass rules to get their work done simply coz the officials wouldnt let you work if you go by them. So why not just abolish them? Instead we are making more of them. So now, you can also be exploited by the lokpal and we will end up paying double the bribe for getting your work done. First to the government official, then to the anti-corruption officer.

3. If you have mass support? Use it

Honestly, I have my doubts but if people like Anna Hazare and are so popular, why dont they ask their followers to stop paying bribes for the next one year. Not just that, they have many other leaders on board like Kiran Bedi and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. All these people have millions of followers some of who are also very influential people. Just this one step will go a long way in reducing corruption.

4. Democracy cant be undermined

Its the same reason why I have opposed the Telangana Movement before and I oppose Anna Hazare and Ramdevs movements. You cant bully an elected parliament using undemocratic ways. They keep saying they have the whole nation with them, then why only 20,000 people turn up at Raj Ghat? Further more, if they have the huge support they claim why dont you contest elections and then bring in the bill?

5. JanlokPal will fail to curb corruption

Jan Lokpal has been one of Indias largest movements in recent years that is built on common mans anger against the power elite. And I have my opinion that its not going to be the last. But if the Jan lokpal that this bill is going to establish fails at ending corruption as it is most likely to, the common man will again start believing that India mein kuch nahin badalta. Instead, lets focus on something constructive and something which will actually work. I dont think Jan lokpal will and is just a waste of time and resources.

Anna Hazare and Jan Lokpal Bill may fail

The idea of the first Jan Lokpal Bill dates back to as early as 1969, yet this democratic bill was always denied by the pseudo democratic government of India for the last 42 years. None of the Lokpal bills introduced again and again in 1971, 1977, 1985, 1989, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2005 and 2008 passed the approval nod of our great Indian leaders simply because it threatened the supreme powers that the rulers have always enjoyed. The latest Jan Lokpal bill, drafted by Shanti Bhushan, former IPS Kiran Bedi, Justice N. Santosh Hegde, advocate Prashant Bhushan, former chief election commissioner J. M. Lyngdoh in consultation with the leaders of the India Against Corruption movement and the civil society, proposes to create an effective anti-corruption and grievance handling system by forming an independent body with power to investigate and punish corruption. With 73 years old Gandhian Anna Hazare s determination to bring this bill into reality through his fast to death and every section of the media supporting him, millions of people are dreaming already to erase corruption and bring down the misuse of power by politicians. But this bill, as we see is not without its own set of risks and failure modes. Some of these risks that need attention, as per the salient features of the Lokpal bill are: 1. Formation of Independent Institutions (Lokpal in the center and Lokayukta in each state) like the Supreme Court and the Election Commission, which will act on its own to investigate and punish corruption and the corrupted. It is being claimed that no politician or minister would be able to influence the decision of the Lokpal or Lokayukta because its members will be selected by judges, citizens and constitutional authorities and not by politicians or ministers, through a completely transparent and democratic process. But it is a similar transparent and democratic process of the country that elects and puts the same corrupted politicians and leaders to power in every election! When people themselves select corrupted leaders to power, the justification that the people again will select their representative to fight those same corrupted leaders is really weak. According to the bill, any complaint against any officer of Lokpal shall be investigated and the officer dismissed within two months. The idea sounds good, but if some official of Lokpal is indeed found guilty

and punished, the public trust on the system itself would be damaged. For example, in rural north east, the people still do not trust the Indian army because of the rapes and killings which it had done in the past, though some of those accused have been punished. The world always accuses the Pakistani cricket team to have fixed a match when they lose, just because a few of their players were found guilty of match fixing and punished in the past. The risk of corruption within Lokpal/ Lokayukta itself cannot be ruled out. As per the bill, entire working of Lokpal/ Lokayukta will be transparent to the public, but even working of Government agencies are supposed to be transparent which is not because of corruption within. If the officials of Lokpal or Lokayukta are bribed secretly or bought with huge amount of money, the entire idea of this establishment is destroyed. 2. As per the Jan Lokpal Bill, all current anti corruption agencies like the CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal. The idea is appealing since the functioning of CBI and vigilance departments has always been secret and never transparent enough of the public. But , If CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal, who will actually head the Lokpal? If the CBI or the Vigilance officers continue to call the shots and take decisions, this means its the Government again, this time indirectly, who is doing investigations! On current date, even if a CBI or Vigilance finds proof of corruption against the top politicians or ministers, it is nearly impossible to put the accused behind bars because of the diplomatic, political and influence from the Government. With CBI, CVC, etc coming together to form a Lokpal, their officials would continue to be direct or indirect central government servants. So the same problems would continue as present. With merging of the different independent bodies (CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI), there would be extensive differences in questions over authority, utilization of resources and efficiency of the entire new department might be in stake. The biggest risk would be prominent when a people-elected body comprising of good and clean names in the civil society but having no prior experience of administration of such bodies are given the sole power of running, managing, monitoring and implementing actions of this entire function. 3. As per the bill, investigation of any case will have to be completed in one year and trial should be completed in next one year. The idea is that in a maximum of two years, the corrupt officer or politician should go to jail. The idea is correct as Justice delayed is justice denied indeed. But what happens to the tens of thousands of other judicial cases of people which the courts have to deal with every year. The country is already known to have a bad name for delaying justice or giving decisions on judicial cases because of its constraints with different resources. Although it would be a great idea to complete all Lokpal driven corruption cases within two years, it should never be at the cost of delaying other cases of the common people. Setting up the right infrastructure and resources is a must here. 4. The loss that a corrupt person caused to the people or to the government will be recovered at the time of conviction. This looks like a great idea as there is currently no recovery of the corrupt wealth and a person punished for corruption can enjoy this wealth after returning from his conviction.

 But what is not clear yet and what needs to be taken into account is the nature of the recovery of corrupted wealth invested in assets like private educational institution, private medical college or trade and business that involves large scale employment. For example, corrupted ministers of several states are known to invest in opening private engineering and medical colleges. If investigations reveal that the institution was developed out of black money from corruption, what would be the fate of the college? It cannot be closed down for the reason that it will destroy career of the students, nor would the Government be able to take over it. In another example if a minister is found guilty of corruption, what happens to his private news channel? Would it be sold off to recover the money? What would happen to the employees working for their bread and butter? The list of examples is endless. So although it is must to recover corrupted wealth, it is utmost necessary that the nature of such recovery is defined well. 5. If any work of any citizen is not done within agreed time in any government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be paid as compensation to the complainant. This step will act as a great measure as well as drive efficiency in different Government departments. It would be a welcome move for the people who have to pay bribe to get anything done in a government office. But the same time, This step ensures that Lokpal has the highest power of authority over all Government departments, which will mean that Lokpal becomes a parallel Government in itself. This in itself is a risk where the Government and the Lokpal, both selected by people, would try to exercise their power of dominance or authority over each other. Lokpal imposing financial penalty on officers for not completing work in time can be challenged in the court by the government departments or by the officers themselves with genuine reasons or excuses. This will increase the queue of judicial cases in the country and eat up substantial time and energy of both parties. We salute Anna Hazare for his tremendous efforts against corruption in the country, but at the same time we fear that simply making the bill pass through the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha are not going to be enough. If the risks are not assessed well and practical measures not put into place, this bill can actually turn out only to be an immature step rather than a practical solution to destroy corruption. Last thing we need is one more democratic Frankenstein, arising out of emotion, in the country.

While his means maybe Gandhian, his demands are certainly not.
If what we're watching on TV is indeed a revolution, then it has to be one of the more embarrassing and unintelligible ones of recent times. For now, whatever questions you may have about the Jan Lokpal Bill, here are the answers you're likely to get: tick the box (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is Anna, Anna is India (d) Jai Hind. For completely different reasons, and in completely different ways, you could say that the Maoists and the Jan Lokpal Bill have one thing in common they both seek the overthrow of the Indian State. One working from the bottom up, by means of an armed struggle, waged by a largely adivasi army, made up of the poorest of the poor. The other, from the top down, by means of a bloodless Gandhian coup, led by a freshly minted saint, and an army of largely urban,

and certainly better off people. (In this one, the Government collaborates by doing everything it possibly can to overthrow itself.) In April 2011, a few days into Anna Hazare's first fast unto death, searching for some way of distracting attention from the massive corruption scams which had battered its credibility, the Government invited Team Anna, the brand name chosen by this civil society group, to be part of a joint drafting committee for a new anti-corruption law. A few months down the line it abandoned that effort and tabled its own bill in Parliament, a bill so flawed that it was impossible to take seriously. Then, on August 16th, the morning of his second fast unto death, before he had begun his fast or committed any legal offence, Anna Hazare was arrested and jailed. The struggle for the implementation of the Jan Lokpal Bill now coalesced into a struggle for the right to protest, the struggle for democracy itself. Within hours of this Second Freedom Struggle,' Anna was released. Cannily, he refused to leave prison, but remained in Tihar jail as an honoured guest, where he began a fast, demanding the right to fast in a public place. For three days, while crowds and television vans gathered outside, members of Team Anna whizzed in and out of the high security prison, carrying out his video messages, to be broadcast on national TV on all channels. (Which other person would be granted this luxury?) Meanwhile 250 employees of the Municipal Commission of Delhi, 15 trucks, and six earth movers worked around the clock to ready the slushy Ramlila grounds for the grand weekend spectacle. Now, waited upon hand and foot, watched over by chanting crowds and crane-mounted cameras, attended to by India's most expensive doctors, the third phase of Anna's fast to the death has begun. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, India is One, the TV anchors tell us. While his means may be Gandhian, Anna Hazare's demands are certainly not. Contrary to Gandhiji's ideas about the decentralisation of power, the Jan Lokpal Bill is a draconian, anticorruption law, in which a panel of carefully chosen people will administer a giant bureaucracy, with thousands of employees, with the power to police everybody from the Prime Minister, the judiciary, members of Parliament, and all of the bureaucracy, down to the lowest government official. The Lokpal will have the powers of investigation, surveillance, and prosecution. Except for the fact that it won't have its own prisons, it will function as an independent administration, meant to counter the bloated, unaccountable, corrupt one that we already have. Two oligarchies, instead of just one. Whether it works or not depends on how we view corruption. Is corruption just a matter of legality, of financial irregularity and bribery, or is it the currency of a social transaction in an egregiously unequal society, in which power continues to be concentrated in the hands of a smaller and smaller minority? Imagine, for example, a city of shopping malls, on whose streets hawking has been banned. A hawker pays the local beat cop and the man from the municipality a small bribe to break the law and sell her wares to those who cannot afford the prices in the malls. Is that such a terrible thing? In future will she have to pay the Lokpal representative too? Does the solution to the problems faced by ordinary people lie in addressing the structural inequality, or in creating yet another power structure that people will have to defer to?

Meanwhile the props and the choreography, the aggressive nationalism and flag waving of Anna's Revolution are all borrowed, from the anti-reservation protests, the world-cup victory parade, and the celebration of the nuclear tests. They signal to us that if we do not support The Fast, we are not true Indians.' The 24-hour channels have decided that there is no other news in the country worth reporting. The Fast' of course doesn't mean Irom Sharmila's fast that has lasted for more than ten years (she's being force fed now) against the AFSPA, which allows soldiers in Manipur to kill merely on suspicion. It does not mean the relay hunger fast that is going on right now by ten thousand villagers in Koodankulam protesting against the nuclear power plant. The People' does not mean the Manipuris who support Irom Sharmila's fast. Nor does it mean the thousands who are facing down armed policemen and mining mafias in Jagatsinghpur, or Kalinganagar, or Niyamgiri, or Bastar, or Jaitapur. Nor do we mean the victims of the Bhopal gas leak, or the people displaced by dams in the Narmada Valley. Nor do we mean the farmers in NOIDA, or Pune or Haryana or elsewhere in the country, resisting the takeover of the land. The People' only means the audience that has gathered to watch the spectacle of a 74-year-old man threatening to starve himself to death if his Jan Lokpal Bill is not tabled and passed by Parliament. The People' are the tens of thousands who have been miraculously multiplied into millions by our TV channels, like Christ multiplied the fishes and loaves to feed the hungry. A billion voices have spoken, we're told. India is Anna. Who is he really, this new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we've heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer's agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn't seem to have a view about the Government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India. He does however support Raj Thackeray's Marathi Manoos xenophobia and has praised the development model' of Gujarat's Chief Minister who oversaw the 2002 pogrom against Muslims. (Anna withdrew that statement after a public outcry, but presumably not his admiration.) Despite the din, sober journalists have gone about doing what journalists do. We now have the back-story about Anna's old relationship with the RSS. We have heard from Mukul Sharma who has studied Anna's village community in Ralegan Siddhi, where there have been no Gram Panchayat or Co-operative society elections in the last 25 years. We know about Anna's attitude to harijans': It was Mahatma Gandhi's vision that every village should have one chamar, one sunar, one kumhar and so on. They should all do their work according to their role and occupation, and in this way, a village will be self-dependant. This is what we are practicing in Ralegan Siddhi. Is it surprising that members of Team Anna have also been associated with Youth for Equality, the anti-reservation (pro-merit) movement? The campaign is being handled by people who run a clutch of generously funded NGOs whose donors include CocaCola and the Lehman Brothers. Kabir, run by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, key figures in Team Anna, has received $400,000 from the Ford Foundation in the last three years. Among

contributors to the India Against Corruption campaign there are Indian companies and foundations that own aluminum plants, build ports and SEZs, and run Real Estate businesses and are closely connected to politicians who run financial empires that run into thousands of crores of rupees. Some of them are currently being investigated for corruption and other crimes. Why are they all so enthusiastic? Remember the campaign for the Jan Lokpal Bill gathered steam around the same time as embarrassing revelations by Wikileaks and a series of scams, including the 2G spectrum scam, broke, in which major corporations, senior journalists, and government ministers and politicians from the Congress as well as the BJP seem to have colluded in various ways as hundreds of thousands of crores of rupees were being siphoned off from the public exchequer. For the first time in years, journalist-lobbyists were disgraced and it seemed as if some major Captains of Corporate India could actually end up in prison. Perfect timing for a people's anti-corruption agitation. Or was it? At a time when the State is withdrawing from its traditional duties and Corporations and NGOs are taking over government functions (water supply, electricity, transport, telecommunication, mining, health, education); at a time when the terrifying power and reach of the corporate owned media is trying to control the public imagination, one would think that these institutions the corporations, the media, and NGOs would be included in the jurisdiction of a Lokpal bill. Instead, the proposed bill leaves them out completely. Now, by shouting louder than everyone else, by pushing a campaign that is hammering away at the theme of evil politicians and government corruption, they have very cleverly let themselves off the hook. Worse, by demonising only the Government they have built themselves a pulpit from which to call for the further withdrawal of the State from the public sphere and for a second round of reforms more privatisation, more access to public infrastructure and India's natural resources. It may not be long before Corporate Corruption is made legal and renamed a Lobbying Fee. Will the 830 million people living on Rs.20 a day really benefit from the strengthening of a set of policies that is impoverishing them and driving this country to civil war? This awful crisis has been forged out of the utter failure of India's representative democracy, in which the legislatures are made up of criminals and millionaire politicians who have ceased to represent its people. In which not a single democratic institution is accessible to ordinary people. Do not be fooled by the flag waving. We're watching India being carved up in war for suzerainty that is as deadly as any battle being waged by the warlords of Afghanistan, only with much, much more at stake.

Major Disadvantages of Lokpal Bill

This is not a mature bill, still lot many open issues, I will write them all here before I write about the possible fix for it. I could be an ignorant about the complete bill but I tried to read it from various places and I didnt notice anyone describing these issues.

1. Huge burden on government to run this, it needs huge money to manage the head counts. 2. I dont understand why it needs 1 year for decision and another 1 year for the punishment. 3. How someone can guarantee there will be No minister or bureaucrat influence on their investigations. 4. How can it be assured that Lokpal members are not corrupted? Dont we have corrupted judges, citizens and constitutional authorities, who says only the politicians are corrupted?

I believe we are responsible for the corrupted system and we should be the one to fix it, government will have to support us as we support the government. Here are my thoughts.

How can we reduce the monetary burden on government and solve the problem? We dont need to hire the 100% decision makers, we can hire only administrative people to manage the system and the decision makers will be the regular citizens. We all solve some issues on daily basis and we dont need to be qualified to solve them. There are more than 70% issues in India that dont need be investigated at all. Lets say I applied for a passport renewal and the department lost it, there are 3-4 people responsible for handling the passport and everyone should be punished equally. Let them all pay Rs 10,000 each and find out who the real culprit internally. This way I get some compensation for losing the passport and the office work as a group rather than an individual. It is a common problem in India that the staffs think them to be individual than a group and they make you run from one to other for a small task. To make these kind of simple decisions we dont need fulltime and highly qualified people. Who will be member for this case will be auto selected and everyone will be paid something to show up at the decided place. People who are not going to show up will end up in paying huge amount so that it becomes everyones responsibility to participate, there can be some excuses for emergency reasons. We dont need 1 year to solve a case now, major part of the complains can be solved in 3 months and punished in 2-6 months if we make everyone to come and participate. Now the government will have at least 60 billion staff to handle the cases. People participating in the cases will be informed at the site on the details so there is no upfront information available or relation build before the D day. There cant be any influence as no one gets time, influence will come in when we give time to the case and people on the case are known. How can a Lokpal member be corrupted now? Person doesnt know anything, goes to solve a problem and takes a decision on the spot. For the case that needs to be investigated properly needs some fulltime employees as the decision makers. Give an opportunity to people above the age of 50 to retire from their regular job and join the department. They have 50 years of track record to prove if they are uncorrupted or not, this head count can be 50%. Other 50% can be fresh candidates from various ages. Every case should involve audience, if a person is not satisfied with the decision then he can take an audience poll for reapply. If audience support him to file again then he is not charged to re-file else he is going to pay good

amount for reconsideration. Failing 3 times will lock him to the punishment and cant apply for reconsideration to any of his cases for next 5 years.

There can be many things added to this bill to make it incorruptible. If we are just trying to shift from one corrupt system to another then there is no point in passing this. Making this bill a best one is the job of the government and we all have to participate and make it work from approval to execution. Do you agree with me, let me know here, I am open to any kind debate.

Major loopholes of Lokpal Bill

1. No suo moto recognition of legal cases According to the government's proposal, Lokpal will not have any power to either initiate action suo motu in any case or even receive complaints of corruption from general public. It also says that complaints against the Legislature Members can only be registered to the Speaker of Parliament or the Chairperson of Rajya Sabha who can decide if it should be investigated by Lokpal. As Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy puts it, the proposed Lokpal Bill will become a 'jokepal bill' if it does not have an independent prosecution commission. However, Team Anna is adamant on giving Lokpal the powers to initiate investigations suo moto in any cases. 2. PM, judiciary, bureaucrats outside its ambit A major loophole that makes the controversial bill quite toothless and the anti-corruption exercise a sham one, Prime minister is excluded from its purview. The Lokpal is barred from probing any allegations against the PM who is closely associated with subjects like defence, security and foreign affairs. The proposed bill excludes the Prime Minister, higher judiciary, government bureaucrats, panchayats, and all State government machinery. The bill becomes meaningless if it does not include the bureaucrats who are time and again proved to be the masterminds behind many of the major corruption scams in India.

The practicality of the Jan Lokpal Bill I read the Jan Lokpal bill. The bill makes numerous claims, it is ambitious in scope, and wide in its assumptions.

The Lokpal will have powers to initiate suo moto action or receive complaints of corruption from the general public. In a country the size of India, with a population in excess of 1.2 billion, exactly how the mechanism will work is not well explained. It appears that this will involve the setting up of a large bureaucracy. The irony of setting up a bureaucracy to look into corruption in bureaucracies should not be lost on anyone. The Lokpal will be granted powers to initiate Prosecution against anyone found guilty. This implies some kind of a parallel judiciary and law enforcement mechanism. Another example where the the Lokpal bill assumes that whats broken cant be fixed. Why not make reforms to our current courts system and law enforcement enterprises, do we really need a parallel law enforcement mechanism and judiciary. Theres not the slightest hint that the drafters of the Jan Lokpal have any idea about the turf wars this would cause. The Lokpal will protect whistle-blowers, have police rights, determine punishments, and the list of responsibilities of the Lokpal goes on and on. In summary, the Lokpal will be a law enforcement agency, judiciary, witness protection program, and investigative agency all rolled into one. The whole idea would be laughable, if the implications were not so grave. Another disturbing element of the Jan Lokpal bill is the rampant vigilantism that this will lead to. The corruption reporting mechanism is sure to be misused, overused and abused. The delegitimization of current

government institutions, which is the basis for the Lokpal, could be counterproductive, and lead to more social instability and not less. Finally, the Jan Lokpal bill is at best vague about who will pay for the functioning of the Lokpal. One senses that the tab will eventually be footed by the tax-payer. If that is the case, much more scrutiny has to be applied to every single piece of the Jan Lokpal bill. The above are just a few items which should be cause for concern. It is by no means comprehensive. One hopes that in the coming weeks, the frenzy over this will subside and more calmer, saner voices will be heard. The outpouring of support for Anna Hazare is entirely understandable, citizens are frustrated with corruption and want answers perhaps easy answers. However, responsible citizens must take a step back, and examine all solutions with prudence and care. Expediency should not be favored over rigor. Anyone who claims they have quick answers for corruption must not be taken seriously. Ultimately, providing blind and unconditional support to Anna Hazare and the Jan Lokpal activists, without examining the merits of their ideas, is not patriotism but merely intellectual laziness.