An alternative lokpal bill?

Widening the debate on lokpal, the National Campaign for People Right to Information (NCPRI) wants Prime Minister under the ambit of lokpal but not higher judiciary and admits that Anna Hazare's team bitterness with the government has done damage to civil society movement in India. Chetan Chauhan reports. Point of view

Updated on: Jul 5, 2011, 01:36:26 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Widening the debate on lokpal, the National Campaign for People Right to Information (NCPRI) wants Prime Minister under the ambit of lokpal but not higher judiciary and admits that Anna Hazare's team bitterness with the government has done damage to civil society movement in India.

In its format, the NCPRI had said that the lokpal should be one of the four bodies to deal with corruption, unlike Team Anna's version of corruption to be dealt by the lokpal. NCPRI believe its format is "more effective" and "balanced" but would be fined tuned after further consultation on Wednesday.

While the lokpal should look into allegations of corruption against political executive including Cabinet ministers, all MPs and MLAs and grade-A level officials of the government, a National Judicial Commission has been suggested to deal with higher judiciary.

NCPRI like the BJP and the Left parties wants PM to be brought under the ambit of lokpal with conditions that only cases where there is direct evidence of corruption against the PM, except security related, should be investigated.

NCPRI has also suggested that a National Public Grievance Commission having a district level grievance commission should be constituted having powers to penalize officers and compensate suffering citizens.

This commission will, however, not have powers to initiate disciplinary action against officials as it would be the domain of the Vigilance Commissions at the centre and state levels. "The CVC law should be amended to cover all non-grade A levels officials and initiate action against them directly," said Nikhil De, NCPRI's co-convenor.

To improve people's participation in fight against corruption, the NCPRI wants an overarching whistleblower law covering people in and outside the government. The present whistleblower law provides protection only government officials.

The NCPRI's draft module can be implemented under the existing government provisions as a law to set up national judicial commission and to protect whistleblowers has been introduced in the Parliament. A law to up lokpal, which would require tweaking if NCPRI's suggestions are accepted, is likely to be introduced in monsoon session of Parliament.

"Ours is not a final word," De said and added they want the government and political parties to consider their model before final view are taken on lokpal. While basic fundamentals of their drafts are same as that of Team Anna, NCPRI believes that one lokpal will be "unmanageable" and "too powerful".

Complimenting Team Anna for highlighting the corruption issue, another NCPRI member Shekhar Singh said the bitterness in the joint drafting committee has provided ammunition to political parties to slam voice from outside the ruling class.

In recent past, laws such as Right To Information, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and now National Food Security Act were drafted in consultation with the civil society but Singh wants the government to further strengthen the civil society consultation on important legislations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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