Fighting corruption: Jan Lokpal Bill implications of implementing it

The version 2.3 of Jan Lokpal Bill has expanded its coverage and power beyond what i would not have dreamt of. 

Its jurisdiction is now over "PM, Ministers, Elected Representatives, All public servants, Judges of the higher judiciary." [Government's version includes only Group A officers amongst public servants at the centre only and excludes PM in office and Judiciary].

Secondly, it can look at many more complaints, " Definition- a complaint means a complaint alleging that a public servant has indulged in an act of corruption punishable under Chapter IX of the Indian Penal Code or under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988; which would also include any offence committed by an elected member of a house of legislature even in respect of his speech or vote inside the house." [Government's version is limited to offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988].

As the Lok Pal is supposed to have its own separate wings for investigation and prosecution, it is worth considering the cost of running an effective Lok Pal. [Both Govt and Jan Lokpal are agreed on this formulation].

With 45 million public servants (government employees) and hundreds of judges to be disciplined for any complaint lodged with the Lok Pal (at centre or state), one wonders if the necessary resources required to run the Lok Pal will be provided. I read in the press that in 1972, the original version of Mr Bhushan's version of Lok Pal envisaged an annual expense of Rs. 3.x lacs p.a. and the current version will require a budget of Rs.1,700 crores p.a. (i.e Rs.300K and Rs.17 Billion p.a. respectively). This looks like a gross underestimate and with such meagre resources, the Lok Pal will be no different from the existing organisations which are buried under ridiculous backlogs.

The magnitude of corruption is huge, almost mind boggling. Perhaps it justifies changing the architecture of the government envisaged in the constitution of India. We have three pillars in the government structure - Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. Having an effective Lok Pal almost means creating four pillars, Legislature, Executive, Judiciary and Lok Pal (Super Referee). The fourth pillar should have a staff strength of 450K persons and with an average salary plus overhead expense of Rs.500K p.a., the annual budget of running an effective Lok Pal is Rs. 225 Billion.

Obviously, the above additional resources cannot be found. So it will mean reshuffling or merging completely the existing resources from police, judiciary, ACB, CBI, CVC into Lok Pal.

So the end result will be that we will have a smart Lok Pal which will reduce corruption in the government but it will be at the cost of higher level or disorder, criminality and increasing back log of cases in the courts in the non-government sectors. This is because Rs.225 Billion would have got carved out of the budgets for the police, CBI and Judiciary.

If on the other hand, additional resources are allocated to Lok Pal and it is ICT enabled, it can perhaps do its job more cost-effectively than the existing organs of the government without hiring hundreds of thousands people. It should be empowered to requisition investigating officers and prosecuting officers as and when required from centre or from state governments on a deputation. 

For reducing corruption, the legislative competence must be improved and the babus who have drafted old set of laws and rules must be replaced and concurrently the old laws and rules should be rewritten in unambiguous language and without the baggage of amendments upon amendments. After formation of Lok Pal, this is the second most urgent step. Accelerating roll out of Judicial reforms in the making, is the third most urgent step. Police reforms are the fourth most important step and electoral reforms are the fifth most important step.

References: 
http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/document/papers/Police_Population_Ratio.htm

Upon Anna Hazare crusade

Anna Hazare and his supporters, ardent and vociferous, and those who may be passive and even sceptical, all are well intentioned folks who want to oppose corruption by throwing out politicians and government apparatchiks (government officers and what about judicial officers, prosecuting corrupt judges is not more important?) whenever evidence of corrupt behaviour is found. And they believe "Lokpal Bill" duly modified by civil folks (mostly lawyers and "activists") will facilitate this much more than CBI, ACB or CVC have achieved in the past (there is talk of merging all these?). Since electronic media has discovered "corruption" makes an interesting story, everyone wants to flog the corrupt officer. Even before evidence is compiled, many fishy episodes get labeled as "scams" and round-the-clock reporting begun by most of the TV "News" Channels to see if TRPs improve.

The real issue is not about prosecuting the corrupt, we should be more concerned about the underlying problems that need urgent attention of experts. Corrupt politicians, executive and judiciary ("public servants”) should be prosecuted undoubtedly. Lokpal Bill by focusing just on corrupt politicians and executives will have a small impact on inclusive growth or the creation of an equitable or just society – a transparent and efficient government.

Please read what USA is doing. What ICT forum can help achieve:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment/

http://govinthelab.com/

For architecting Government version 2.0 (which is transparent, efficient and obviously ICT enabled), we need systems and legal experts. Most people have not realized the pernicious effects of poor quality legislations and lousy or archaic systems – I suspect we don’t teach these subjects in IAS schools.

None of the committee members in the Lokpal drafting committee is an IT expert (from the government side - all are lawyers). Lokpal bill itself is about facilitating launching a prosecution against suspects - using the very same government machinery and judicial system, which are known not to deliver results. We should ask why the machinery is not well oiled (how much more grease is needed?), why the judicial system is unable to dispense timely justice? Are the judges of poor quality or their integrity is suspect? Do they work too few hours & take a long recess, they need long vacations? Is the system over loaded? Of the several million cases queued up for decades in various courts, are large numbers on account of poor legislation or lousy systems? [A McKinsey study revealed that 70% of the cases are property title disputes, the next highest matter is "bounced cheques" - under IPC section 138 - the root causes of both these problems by the way are very easy to fix - 1) do away with VII x XII Form designed by Anderson - a bright British clerk, in 1928, and replace the land title records with an online system - many state governments are doing this finally, 2) order the banks and financial institutions NOT to take PDCs from loanees - this practice of taking or issuing postdated cheques is not followed in advanced countries - they do proper checking of credit worthiness of loanees and then advance loans but in India our "respected financial institutions" prefer to apply short-cuts and take advantage of innocent members of public, many of whom land up defending themselves against dozens of criminal cases launched by their lenders following repayment defaults - for e.g. if 12 cheques bounce, the bank would file 12 criminal cases].

Another thing easy to fix: Various government inspectors and officers can slap a claim on any entrepreneur or a business unit or a citizen. The claim is of tax or penalty for violation of ambiguous rules which can be interpreted differently because of poor drafting or series of indecipherable amendments. Even low officers can pass an order and middle level officers can launch a prosecution - normally the rules require the defendant to pay first and appeal afterwards. The government has endless resources (lawyers) to fight cases in courts but the defendant must provide for himself/herself. Should the defendant win the case, nothing happens to the officer(s) who made the claim. If we institute a law that the officer will be penalised even to the extent of 5% of the dismissed claim or two months’ salary (whichever is lower), we would find the incidents of corruption will drop dramatically.

Unfortunately you won’t find people agitating to fix the underlying systems, poor quality legislations and bad systems. The IAS receives training which was probably devised by the British - they are not taught about the pernicious effects of bad systems or the use of ICT. The elected legislators do not receive any training nor are they shown or compelled to study what other countries' expert groups are doing without having to make foreign trips [whenever learning involves foreign trips, they are more than keen to undertake such study tours]. In our big country, bloated bureaucratic machinery, poor quality legislations with huge number of amendments, ill-trained rulers (public servants) are a very big problem. The people who have knowledge do not have power and those with power don't have the knowledge? We need to go much beyond Lokpal bill. We need more than just lawyers to fix the system, they are not trained to use ICT which can transform the system and bring transparency. Now there are many examples of good systems but news channels have yet to discover them.