Lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan, a member of the joint committee to draft the Jan Lok Pal Bill, tells Akshat Kaushal that popular support forced the govt to bend.
The Jan Lok Pal Bill campaign, of which you are a part, has been criticised for blackmailing the government and for undermining democracy and its institutions through which these issues could have been addressed. Do you agree?
To say that all issues should be addressed by democratic institutions means that you perpetuate the democracy, which we see happening in this country. We have seen that the government is being bribed to take decisions in cases of bribery, and MPs are bribed to vote on corrupt considerations. We elect our representatives once in five years, in an election that is hugely influenced by money power, and later leave all decision-making to these people who have been elected five years ago and the governments they form with no participation of the people. Therefore, in our country democracy has been perverted. In Anna Hazare’s movement, the government had to respond as there was large support that the people showed towards this movement.
But, a few thousand people at Jantar Mantar don’t represent India. Most of them may not have even read the Jan Lok Pal Bill.
The people present there were frustrated with corruption. They wanted an effective institution to control corruption and felt that Anna Hazare was the right person for taking this movement forward. If they would not have believed in Anna Hazare, so many people wouldn’t have rallied behind him.
But, being frustrated with corruption doesn’t mean they support your Bill.
People are fed up with corruption but the government is not. They have neither reformed the CBI nor the CVC or the judiciary. People want reform of these institutions. So, why is the government not doing it? It is because they are themselves corrupt and they don’t want reform as that would directly affect them. Why would they be interested in setting up a strong anti-corruption agency? Second, the fact that they have been elected at some point in the past doesn’t mean that they represent the popular will of everything. We are only saying make governance more participatory.
Eight times this Bill has failed the test in the Parliament. It proves the people, through the MPs, have not shown support for this Bill.
The Parliament doesn’t represent the people of this country any more. It is clear that the people want a strong Lok Pal.
Don’t you think Anna Hazare has set a bad precedent? Now, anyone who wants to get his demands fulfilled would sit on a fast-unto-death and blackmail the government.
Why will the government accept the demands of anybody? So many people fast-unto-death but the government doesn’t accept their demands, unless they feel it is evoking a huge public response. And that only happens when the issue has a lot of public support and the leader leading the movement has the power of the people backing it.
It is difficult to ignore the political undertone in your movement. It is alleged that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh actively backed you.
The fact that some saffron parties are supporting the movement doesn’t prepare the ground for undermining the movement. We would not want to be categorised with saffron organisations. Though they have been supporting the campaign, I don’t think they are behind it. We cannot stop them from supporting the campaign, but they should not be allowed to steer it.
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The present Jan Lok Pal Bill appears to give the Lok Pal the powers of a “super cop and super court”. Instead of leading a movement to form another agency to tackle corruption, why don’t you strengthen the existing institutions?
It is the same thing depending on how you look at it. We are removing the Central Bureau of Investigation and Central Vigilance Commission from the control of the government and placing them under an independent body.
We have, on the one hand, adopted policies that have created huge incentives for corruption such as privatisation of natural resources, natural enterprises, etc. These policies allowed you to transfer huge resources to private hands. This is what Raja and Koda did. However, you have not put in place institutions to detect corruption, prosecute people and prove the people involved in corruption as guilty. The problem is that either the agencies fighting corruption are controlled by the government itself or they need its permission before taking any action against a government servant. To fight against corruption, we need an institution that is independent of the government and can investigate and prosecute without the interference of the government.
There is a worry that the Supreme Court would strike down the Bill as it overrides the judiciary. Do you think our Constitution has provisions for an agency like the Lok Pal?
The Lok Pal doesn’t override the judiciary. Today, the CBI can investigate judges. Now, we have placed another safeguard that the CBI would not be able to investigate the judges unless it is sanctioned by the Lok Pal. At present, the impediment is that you need to get the sanction of the Chief Justice of India before investigating any judge. But, what if the Chief justice of India is to be investigated? Who will hand the sanction for investigating him? This is a situation of conflict of interest, where the Chief Justice of India grants sanctions against his own brother judges. We have given this power to an independent Lok Pal.
But, there are certain contradictions in the Bill itself such as the Lok Pal would investigate matters of corruption against the Supreme Court judges, whereas the same judges of the Supreme Court would monitor the appointment of the members of the Lok Pal. This is a conflict of interest.
There is a slight conflict of interest, but these cannot be totally avoided. These can be minimised but not avoided. We have avoided them by building transparency in the selection process. Lok Pal has been made accountable to a five-member bench of the Supreme Court, not to the whole of the court.
One of the active supporters of your movement, Baba Ramdev, has criticised the presence of you and your father both on the panel. One of you could have represented the views of the other and instead a new member such as Narayana Murthy or Harish Salve could have been included.
I had suggested the names of others in my place but the people behind the campaign felt that for the draft to be an effective Bill, we needed people who have been involved in the drafting of the Jan Lok Pal Bill, and involved in anti-corruption affairs and also know the law. Since both my father and I had been involved in the drafting of the Bill, they felt that among the available people we would be the most appropriate.
