Aruna Roy offers her third way

Significantly,it sought to distance itself from the manner in which Team Anna has been insisting that its version of the Lokpal Bill — called Jan Lokpal Bill — must be the only one to be passed by Parliament.

“We do not agree with anyone — and this is not specific to Anna Hazare,who says that my view is the only correct view and should be given precedence over others. We believe that Parliament has the right to discuss the legislation and come up with whatever is the agreed outcome. We must,of course,forcefully argue our cases at every available opportunity and try to convince the government and Parliament to agree to our proposals,” said Nikhil De,a co-convenor of NCPRI.

The group said while it fully agreed with the goal and the non-violent method of fasting used by Hazare to put pressure on the government,it had serious differences of opinion on his adamant stand that the Parliament must only discuss and pass the Jan Lokpal Bill.

Former chief justice of Delhi High Court A P Shah went on to say that it was wrong to assume that the Hazare camp was the only representative of civil society. “Anna is not civil society and civil society is not Anna,” he said,apparently responding to Kiran Bedi’s statement on Friday asserting that “Anna is India and India is Anna”.

The group said it had already responded to the advertisements put out by Parliament’s standing committee in Saturday’s newspapers inviting suggestions and comments from the public to strengthen the government’s version of the Lokpal Bill that has been introduced in Parliament. “We have sent our detailed formulation and also requested to be heard at the standing committee,” De said.

The group is of the view that instead of creating an overarching office of Lokpal with unprecedented powers and jurisdiction over every government servant,it would be better to take up multiple measures to tackle corruption. This would certainly include the Lokpal but would also involve the strengthening of the existing CVC,creating a new Judicial Accountability Commission through Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill that is in Parliament,and a new Grievance Redressal Commission through a new law. Bringing in the Whistleblowers’ Protection Law would be the fifth and final pillar of such a structure.

De said the group was acutely conscious of the fact that it could be seen to be acting at the behest of the government to weaken Hazare’s camp. “The government might do what it will do. We have been working on the Lokpal proposal for some time now and the formulation we have come up with is the result of extensive work in the last three months,involving discussions with different stakeholders,” he said.