Introspecting Aloud

Interesting sections of the Lokpal bill tabled in parliament

To confirm some text I read on the IAC facebook page, I went through the Lokpal bill tabled by the Government using the link provided by the IAC website at http://www.box.net/shared/k9bz7pfzj6q6s0us9mil

Here are some really interesting sections of the bill:

51. No suit, prosecution of other legal proceedings under this Act shall lie against any public servant, in respect of anything which is done in good faith or intended to be done in the discharge of this official functions or in exercise of this powers.

52. No suit, prosecution or other legal proceedings shall lie against the Lokpal or against any office, employee, agency or any person, in respect of anything which is done in good faith or intended to be done under this Act or the rules or the regulations made thereunder.

54. The Lokpal shall not inquire or investigate into any complaint, if the complaint is made after the expiry of a period of seven years from the date on which the offence mentioned in such complaint is alleged to have been committed.

In my untrained mind, (51) and (52) means that unless one can cite profit made by a government official in the initial complaint to Lokpal, no shady decision will be even investigated by Lokpal. Case in point, audit reports like that of CAG show irregularity in proceedings, but since their mandate doesn't extend into investigating profits made by the government officials, CAG reports are not sufficient to get an investigation done by Lokpal. So we might know, for example, Sheila Dixit has done something fishy, but we cannot investigate her as unless someone shows the specific kickbacks, we have to assume she did all those irregularities in good faith.

(54) means that no new investigation would be made on corruption complaints before 2004. So nobody can get into the 2G scams whose beginnings lie years before 2004.

No wonder this is termed as a joke-pal.

When should public figures recuse themselves or step down?

As usual the Congress spin masters are muddying pictures in the issue of the propriety of Bhushans continuing in the lokpal drafting committee. Sanjay Baru even tried to give an analogy of how Prashant Bhushan recused himself from a case in Gujarat when his bias was questioned. He asked why Prashant would not recuse himself in this case.

Their claim is that when aspersions have been cast on the integrity of these two people, they should step down. Now I am not one who has been entirely comfortable with both these folks being the in committee, but i think all this is a wrong argument.

A politician is rightly asked to step down, or a public figure is asked to recuse themselves when his ability to perform his duty is questioned. Personal integrity, while it should be, has never been a reason for politicians in India to resign. Otherwise, all the hundreds of chargesheeted and convicted representatives would not have been present in our parliament or legislative assemblies.

However, if a credible allegation is made against a political figure holding a public office, that he/she has abused their position or intentionally acted against the interest of the public or has a conflict of interest in that position, then it is a good reason for the person in question to step down.

Congress maintains that Shashi Tharoor resigned on mere allegation. He did it because he was supposed to have abused his minister post to ask for favor from Lalit Modi.

Congress maintains that Chavan resigned on allegation of the housing scam. Again, he had misused his position.

Prashant Bhushan has recused himself from the Gujarat case upon allegations of bias. Since that directly affects his role in the case, it was proper for him to recuse himself, and he did.

However, shady CDs about Shanti Bhushan's chat with shady politicians? Allegations of favoritism in land allotments in UP? How are these allegations in any way relevant to Bhushan's position in a drafting committee of a bill which doesn't cover non-politicians?

In any case, public memory being short, I am surprised that no one yet has brought up the credentials of the government presentatives in the panel to question. Kapil Sibal got a lot of notoriety by dismissing the entire 2G scam as a non-issue with the losses being merely notional. Today his predeccesor is in jail for this notional crime. So it is sure that the judicial system doesn't agree with him, and he is clearly trying to protect the corrupt.

Pranab Mukherjee a few years ago was embroiled in the rice scam where he pushed to export rice in spite of there being a ban on the same. The decision of the Group of ministers that he was heading was opposed at the time by none other than Chidambaram and Sharad Pawar himself. 

These are far more relevant and serious charges. There is a serious conflict of interest here, as these same people are drafting a bill which would have institutions hopefully take suo moto recognition of such offenses and investigate them. 

Dalit should have been in Lokpal committee: Paswan