How Jan Lokpal Bill Can Curb The Corruption By Politicians
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How Jan Lokpal Bill can curb the corruption by politicians

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See interview of Ashok  Kothare

Present situation - No politician or senior officer ever goes to jail despite huge evidence because Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) and CBI directly come under the government. Before starting investigation or prosecution in any case, they have to take permission from the same bosses, against whom the case has to be investigated. Constitution proposed such provision because when that was written all politicians were honest.                                                             

System Proposed by Anna group - Lokpal at centre and Lokayukta at state level will be independent bodies. ACB and CBI will be merged into these bodies. They will have power to initiate investigations and prosecution against any officer or politician without needing anyone’s permission. Investigation should be completed within 1 year and trial to get over in next 1 year. Within two years, the corrupt shall be punished.

 

Present situation - No corrupt officer is dismissed from the occupation because, Central Vigilance Commission, which is supposed to dismiss corrupt officers, is only an advisory body. Whenever it advises government to dismiss any senior corrupt officer, its advice is never implemented.   

System Proposed by Anna group - Lokpal and Lokayukta will have complete powers to order dismissal of a corrupt officer. CVC and all departmental vigilance will be merged into Lokpal and state vigilance will be merged into Lokayukta.

 

Present situation - No action is taken against corrupt judges because permission is required from the Chief Justice of India to even register an FIR against corrupt judges.

System Proposed by Anna group - Lokpal & Lokayukta shall have powers to investigate and put on trial any judge without needing permission of anyone. Lokpal & Lokayukta shall have their court to undertake trials. During such court proceedings no advocates shall be allowed to represent the case on both sides that means they have to present the case personally.  

 

Present situation - Nowhere to go, people suffer corruption but no action is taken on their complaints.    

System Proposed by Anna group - Lokpal & Lokayukta will have to enquire into and hear every complaint registered. Lokpal & Lokayukta can arrange of secret informers (khabri) from within all government departments to get information of what is going on in those departments and arrest any expected corruption. Honest employees shall be used for that. Any citizen can send information of any incidence of corruption however if such complains are found to be fake the complainant is penalized severely for that. There is fear that all provisions of Lokpal & Lokayukta may be exploited by people for personal vengeance.  

 

Present situation - There is much corruption within CBI and vigilance departments. Their style of working is very secretive that encourages corruption within these agencies. Secretiveness encourages corruption; that is why policy of public domain is encouraged by supporters of natural democracy.    

System Proposed by Anna group - All investigations in Lokpal & Lokayukta shall be transparent. After completion of investigation, all case records shall be open to public. Complaint against any staff of Lokpal & Lokayukta shall be enquired and punishment announced within two months. Such complains should also be registered on website mentioned below.

 

Present situation - Weak and corrupt people, supporter of politicians are appointed as heads of anti-corruption agencies. When it comes to punishing a corrupt politician all parties join together to stop that and save the culprit. UPA suggestion for appointment of Lokpal is any suitable (!) retired judge.

System Proposed by Anna group - Politicians will have absolutely no say in selections of Chairperson and members of Lokpal & Lokayukta. Selections will take place through a transparent and public participatory process. Open election of all aspiring candidates by people through regular election process conducted by Election Commission and then he shall head the Intelligence such as CBI and any other. Provision shall be made in finance budgets of central and State for the expenses to manage Lokpal & Lokayukta. ACB, CBI and CID and all such finance crime investigating agencies shall be under Lokpal and Lokayukta and they shall be called LACB, LCBI and LCID but police and CRF shall be with government. CBI and CID under the government shall work on other crimes.  

 

Present situation - Citizens face harassment in government offices. Sometimes they are forced to pay bribes (passive corruption). One only complaint to senior officers, no action is taken on complaints, because senior officers also get their cut.                   

System Proposed by Anna group - Lokpal & Lokayukta will get public complains resolved in time bound manner, impose a penalty of Rs 250 per day of delay to be deducted from the salary of guilty officer and award that amount as compensation to the aggrieved citizen.

 

In case public is forced by any staff of the government or semi government office such as municipality to pay for doing (this is called passive corruption) legitimate work; under Lokpal and Lokayukta, complain can be registered in a website as information and in that details of the bribe are given by the victim such as name and status of the employee, amount, mode of payment, for what the bribe was demanded, date of payment. Possibly telephone or mobile of the employee, witnesses if any etc.; this information remains in the account of that employee and on more complains piling up in that name an inquiry will be arranged. Provision is made so that if after payment of the bribe victim does not register complain that victim shall be included as benefactor of corruption and a trial may be arranged against him/her; to avoid such situation all victims of passive corruption are expected to register their complain immediately after making the bribe. Such complains are accepted by the office of Lokpal & Lokayukta similar as FIR. Payment of baksheesh (appreciation money) to employees by the backer shall be considered as encouragement to corruption (active corruption) and shall be deemed that way and becomes liable for action. Baksheesh receiving employee can complain against the payer and yet keep that money. Such complain is taken as an act of countering active corruption by the employee. Names of complainant shall be reserved from everybody, including Lokpal and Lokayukta, but shall be revealed to the investigating Court of Law during the proceedings.

 

Website is developed with help of suitable sponsors like infosis or Google. Revenue generated through small one line ads can pay for the expenses to run that website. That website shall be in public domain and open to visit by anybody.  

 

Present situation - Put additional taxes on people to recover that loss. That means nothing acceptable is in law to recover ill gotten wealth. A corrupt person can come out of jail, keep and enjoy that money.  

System Proposed by Anna group - Loss caused to the government due to corruption will be recovered from all accused with immediate effect. Actions such as sealing bank accounts until the issue resolved are recommended.

 

Present situation - Small punishment for corruption-Punishment for corruption is minimum 6 months and maximum 7 years only.                                          

System Proposed by Anna group - Enhanced punishment -The punishment would be minimum 5 years and maximum of life imprisonment. Old punishments such as public flogging are recommended to reduce expenditure of prison. Questions are asked by activists that, why should people be put up with the expenses for keeping these defaulters?  

 

Present situation – There is no provision to keep watch over party high commands encouraging corruption in the government.

System Proposed by Anna group - Lokpal & Lokayukta shall keep watch through honest and patriotic ground workers of the party to nab future possibilities of corruptions planned by such party high commands.  

 

Present situation – All party ground workers are forced to obey party high command and stay loyal to them at any cost.

System Proposed by Anna group – All party ground workers shall study all orders by the party high commands to see if they are against the interest of the nation or otherwise and if found against the national interest they must inform Lokpal and Lokayukta about all such activities on the website, mentioned above. Such ground workers can keep the benefits accrued to them for obeying party high command at the same time. This comes under special “chuglee” (backbiting) policy of the Lokpal and Lokayukta to control all party high commands.

 

Rule of minimum national service expected of simple ordinary young people.

 

When some simple youths asked Anna, “Annaji, we are ordinary young people not capable for any big contribution so what minimum national service is expected from us by you?” Anna said, 

 

  • “Final request to all ordinary people by Anna is to practice family planning and take an oath that we shall not produce more than one child and by that keep the growing population in control.
  • We shall not differentiate between boy and girl child and treat both as equal.
  • We shall not encourage old outdated concepts such as “kuldipak” and by that discourage growth of population.
  • We shall explain to our elders that concepts such as “kuldipak’ are not helpful to our nation.”

 

This is minimum nation service Anna expects from all proud young Indians.       


Remember that total estimated amount of all scams of India is,  

Rs. 91 06 03 23 43 00,000/- (INR)

Or 9 10 603 billion rupees (INR)

Or 20235.62 billion Dollars

This does not include ‘small corruptions’ involving police, clerks and peons of income tax, sales tax, police chowkies and such many departments.

 

      I invite you to visit my other blog if you are interested in stories. 

Ashok Kothare’s Blog

You may visit Ideas and tips on any subject for intelligent discussions.       

  

 

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