COMMENTS

1. Systemically all organizations that fight corruption today are under the influence of the govt. It is not acceptable that the government polices itself, it has not worked. Other options that people tout has also not worked.
2. It is not possible to expect that everybody who stands for election or even get elected will be clean. There arent even clean options to vote and people are having to refrain from voting. If people knew there was checks & balances after the election then they wouldnt worry that the unclean option has gone in. The election process is a one way street and because of the level of human development is easy to give lower level freebies & bribe oneself into office. Once in office one has the influence to put the people he/she wants to enable looting because there arent independent agencies to monitor
3. Majority of India's populace vote on basic necessities because of the level of development. It is not possible to expect that they will vote on corruption issues or even bother after election as long as they get their free rice. They are more busy chasing bread & butter and need other people higher up in the food chain to help them fight this. THe civil ociety needs to take up the gauntlet on their behalf. Its a misconception that they dont represent people they have proven there are people backing them on this issue as seen in the last few days.
4. People are not asking to legislate but participate in writing the bill to ensure it doesnt get voted toothless and again land up as a useless law. It is a misconception that the parliment is being bypassed, the bill will be passed in parliament only civil society should be allowed to draft the bill and participate in the discussion. THis argument is a red herring.
5. I personally do not want lokpal to go into technicalities like tendering process etc. unless the bypassing of the same has proven to contribute to personal wealth. I want the bill to only ensure that public money doesnt go into private pockets.
6. Lokpal may not be a magic bulet but the current options also are not. Lokpal has better percentages of delivering than the current setup. 
7. Current judiciary is overloaded, lokpal will free up valuable time from the judiaciary allowing them to focus on disputes & clearing up backog. Lokpal can become a corruption focussed judiciary.
8. People who point out why the lok ayuktas havent worked need to remember this is exactly why they need to be made independent from political control. How do you expect Santosh Hegde type will come out when nominations are being made by the politicians? They will put who they will not harm them.
9. There are no garuntees in life, lets say the bill does become useless what have we got to lose? Corruption was not yesterday, it has only reached a flashpoint now as the thiefs have gotten bolder. Since we have left other agencies toothless but still want to pin our hopes on them, at least we will know we dont want to take steps to rid our country of corruption

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Cheers to you if you think LP/LA bills are the magic bullets

Point #6 :)

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The article by Justice Shah is an excellent critique of the Jan Lokpal bill.  One wishes that instead of clamouring for various civil society members to be part of the drafting committee, the insistence be for public debates on various drafts and features.  Instead of a 100 member drafting committee, I would like to see more debates like this along with constructive suggestions.  The goal - tackle corruption. 

First question - Considering the rampant rot in almost all our institutions,  do we form an independent ombudsman such as the Lok Pal (as one of the steps, not a magic pill)?  Recommendations in the past have been yes - so worth trying.  Assuming agreement to this questions as the base case, the next questions is - how to form this organization within the ambit of our constitution and principles of governance?  Here, Justice Shah has and Mr. Nayak have raised some valid questions. I would like to comment on some of those (as a layman).

Combining investigation and prosecution powers in the Lokpal:

One of the aspects of the current Jan Lokpal bill, in my reading of it, is a lack of clarity on what exactly the lok pal is?  Police, investigator, judge?  Prosecution rates in our country are abbysmal.  For Lokpal to be effective, it is important to have succesful prosecution of the guilty.  My personal, uninformed view is that we need investigations to be oriented from the point of view of prosecution also.  The goal of an investigation of a crime is to establish guilt and subsequently prosecute.  Hence the need for great care in collecting evidence and building an air tight case.  That can only be done if investigation and prosecution are done in close collaboration.  In fact, this is a short coming in our justice system itself, in my humble opinion.  So, how do we enable this?

Vagueness of definitions:

Completely agree.  There is a disturbing vagueness of definition in the bill, with terms such as "Vigilance Angle" which may not even be good english to start with.  That needs to be addressed.  But Nayak and Shah just criticise and do not provide some alternative suggestions.  The key questions to ask here would have been as to the intent of the definitions and how to accomplish it?

Selection committee:

This is one of those painful aspects.  It is nearly impossible to have a perfect selection committee.  Just frame it in order to have some smart heads, as well as clarity and transparency of process.

Appointment of the Lokpal: Clause 8(11) gives a high degree of finality to the list of names recommended by the selection committee for filling up vacancies in the Lokpal. The president is required to only sign on the dotted line.

We once again come to this issue of presidential assent.  If tha tis important, the modification is simple enough.  Only important aspect is to give a firm deadline to the president to execute assent.  Delaying poresidential assent is one way to delay things, especially practised in the case of state government legislation.  It would also be a good idea to describe some key tests for the president to perform before giving assent.

Videographing the selection process:

Intent behind videographing is transparency.  So if the fear is that videographing will limit the open-ness of discussions, then put a time limit on how long the videos are secret before being available for public scrutiny.  In reality, much of the discussions and manouvering will happen outside the formal discussions anyway.

Lokpal fund: The draft bill envisages the creation of a fund into which all penalties and fines imposed by the Lokpal and 10 per cent of the monies confiscated will be deposited.

Nayak and Shah are afraid that parliamentary scrutiny is avoided in this process.  That is simple enough to remedy.  They key aspect here is that for an agency such as lok pal to be succesful, there is need to allot sufficient monies to carry out thorough investigations.  Power without money is useless.  We could have lokpal submit a statement of account to parliament or have an audit by the CAG or maybe ask the lokpal to submit a budget in advance.  Some smart solution can be worked out to this objection.

Power of review over executive decisions: Clauses 8 and 17 turn the Lokpal into a civil court that will reverse the decisions of the executive such as grant of licences, permits, authorisations and even blacklist companies and contractors.

Nayak and Shah are not happy with this provision.  I too agree that this aspect is a bit iffy.  But one of the pain points in our existing system is clear directives by ombudsman type agencies being ignored.  Do they have a suggestion on how to remedy that in a fashion that they are satisfied?

Extraordinary powers of the Lokpal: The draft bill seeks to vest enormous powers in the Lokpal such as telephone tapping, issue of letters rogatory, confiscation of property for making false assets statements, etc. While these powers may be necessary for tackling corruption, there must be adequate checks and balances to prevent their misuse.

Another case of a critique and no competing recommendation.  The authors agree that such powers may be necessary, but argue that checks and balances are required.  So how would they go about it?

I get a little tired of these preachy criticisms that do not take the next step and go to the root intent and a solution that works for the same.  But debate is good.  let there be more and more of it.

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justice Hegde's work is really commendable     He is a oneman army.Mr Moily had to cut a sorry figure

The worst part is that there no drop in corruption. Apunishment to thebribe giver should be thought of.

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 I am not sure this post suits here.

What I mean by "people" is general public, what I mean by "I" is "people" which includes me. But I want to declare that I am corrupt, and I am sure 95% of "people" corrupt. . I am not looking into causes which made me corrupt now, may be later. Here are many incidences which I induldged in corruption, and I am sure many people did. I did all these things just because no one can catch me (except my heart/soul). (Mind : This is not a posting just to aggrevate someones feelings/emotions, just what I do to "save" money/effort/time, not for me but for my next generations! I am busy in just saving money throughout life. )

1) I paid (huge and unjustified) school/capitation fees without getting reciept for capitation fees, just because that is a prestigious school and its my prestige issue. I did not bother even how is my money is spent by school.

2) I registered my site/apartmment much lower price than what I paid, just because it saved me registration fees which is quite huge. 

3) I ran my electric pump in my village for hours together just because it was not metered by government as goodwill/support for farmers.

4) I just through garbage in a "free" site nearby in night time so that nobody can catch me. Meanwhile if someone throws trash, I am first to complain.

5) I give some officials bribe so that I get things easily. Sometimes my work involves little "adjustment" in government records. Oh, why do you call it bribe? Its just expression of gratitude of officer who "helped" me. Am I not a gentleman/lady who cant even show gratitude? Afterall that person also a human being and family man with a low(??)salary !

6) I take help of my driving school instructor to get a license. How can I know all the traffic rules, I am simple person.

7) I will pay for water tankers for water, who will fight with BWSSB just to get ONE tanker of water. Afterall tanker driver also a family man, I need to support him by giving him/his boss business.

8) Many times, I will submit a fake medical bill to office (private company) to save some tax. By giving me fake what medical shop is going to loose? Afterall they have special bill books, meant for people like me, right? Same case with my travel bills too. Who will bother to verify the bills which I got from abroad?

10) I do a lots of shopping, but I dont insist on reciepts, because bluntly shopkeeper says "13.5% you have to pay extra sir/madam". Why to waste my hard earned money just because of this silly reciept?

11) I pay my engineer's/architect's bills only by cash. Just because, if I make bank transaction, I will have to pay service tax right? Further, he/she will have to pay IT on that right? Afterall he is engineer who built my dream home, so nice guy. I cant do bad for him/myself. 

My list is much more than this. But some items really shameful to mention, but I want to save not for me but for future generation.

So I am NOT attending this session, as I am NOT worthy at the moment to suggest anything. Rather, I will watch proceedings/outcome of event from a distance and will try to improve myself first. I know how hard it is...

 End quote : Kannada proverb-> ಒಂದು ಬೆರಳು ಇನ್ನೊಬ್ಬ್ರರನ್ನು ತೋರಿಸಿದರೆ, ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಬೆರಳು ನನ್ನನ್ನೇ ತೋರಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. (If one fingure points others, another fingure points at myself)

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