Unfinished Fight for Transparent India : Indian Ombudsman ‘Lokpal'

Abstract

The year 2011 is remembered in India as the year of the campaign against corruption and for the Jan Lokpal Bill. The campaign began in January 2011 in the backdrop of the publicity that accompanied the several mega-scams that surfaced in 2010, notably those relating to the Commonwealth Games and the telecom spectrum allocations. It caught the public imagination with Anna Hazare’s fast at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in April 2011. That forced the UPA government to constitute a joint drafting committee for a Lokpal bill. The civil society representatives in the committee proposed a bill called the Jan Lokpal bill, which became the basis for discussions. The basic principles on which the bill was drafted were culled from the United Nations Convention against Corruption, which required all countries to put in place anti-corruption investigative agencies that would be independent of the executive government and would have the jurisdiction to investigate all public servants for corruption. In the background of the Jan Lokpal movement The Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill was passed by the parliament on 18th December,2013 which finally became an act after receiving assent from the president on January 1, 2014, and came into force from January 16, 2014. But even after its passage the not established the body called the ‘Lokpal'. The bureaucratic strategy of delay followed by the government shows the reluctance and lack of sincerity on the part of government to constitute Lokpal which is essential to curb corruption which is acting as the greatest menace to our democracy and development.