Time to end discord and move forward
The much-anticipated Lokpal Bill, which is being looked upon as a panacea for rampant corruption in the country, is at the crossroads, with government and civil society activists on the joint drafting panel trading charges and betraying woeful lack of mutual trust. With the final round of discussions of the panel slated for June 20 and 21, it is anybody’s guess whether there would be a last-minute compromise or whether the two sides would drift further apart, jeopardizing the Bill itself. The atmospherics are certainly not inspiring. It is not conducive to an agreement when civil society spokesman Arvind Kejriwal avers publicly that what the government is now bringing is not a Lokpal Bill but a ‘Jokepal’ Bill. This when the government members’ spokesman V. Moily is claiming that there has been agreement in principle on 34 of the 40 points of the draft Bill and that the discussions on June 20-21 will focus on the six contentious points on which there is discord.
In the crucial final round, both sides would need to move earnestly towards breaking the logjam. The civil society members’ demand that the Prime Minister and the higher judiciary be brought within the purview of the Lokpal Bill which the government finds unacceptable are not intractable issues. Mr Moily’s olive branch on ‘revising’ the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill 2010 to provide more stringent steps to tackle corruption in the higher judiciary deserves to be examined. On the government’s part, bringing the Prime Minister within the Lokpal Bill’s purview is worth considering while knitting in some safeguards against misuse. The civil society demand for a structure outside the government to cover all government employees seems impractical because of the sheer size of numbers. Bringing the conduct of MPs in Parliament under the Lokpal is another contentious issue on which the civil society members will need to be realistic.
Some ground has surely been covered on a legislation that has been hanging fire for four decades and the Anna Hazare-led movement has certainly catalyzed this. It would be grave folly for either side to now jeopardize a positive outcome. A greater mutual spirit of accommodation would go a long way in satisfying people at large of the panel’s good intentions in combating the monster of corruption.
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