‘Team Anna says Lokpal has to have everything. You will have a parallel government then’

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: The Standing Committee’s report gives very coherent reasons on why Group C and Group D,now submerged in Group C,should not be included at least in the first phase,when we might want a lean,efficient Lokpal. Also,there are about 65 lakh employees if you include A,B,C, PSUs,Railways,plus Posts and Telegraph. At the United Nations ratio of 1:200,you require a manpower of 35,000 in the Lokpal bureaucracy. They will be policing people below the level of Section Officer also,because C includes peons,clerks,drivers,assistants,etc. I said you have to consider whether you are substituting harassment by one existing bureaucracy with another called the Lokpal bureaucracy. In a lighter vein,I said that a year hence,the same committee would be discussing the feasibility of a dharampal to police the Lokpal bureaucracy. That was to illustrate,graphically,the potential consequence of having a top-heavy body in the first moment of its existence.

Coomi Kapoor: If you want a lean,mean,efficient Lokpal body in the first stage,why have you included all corporates which have public funding,including many NGOs and Trusts,to come under the Lokpal?

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: The Lokpal,at least in its initial phase,was intended to police not more than medium-ticket and big-ticket corruption. That certainly doesn’t mean that lower-ticket corruption is free to be corrupt. By including A and B,you are policing everyone down from the PM and up to the Section Officer. Now most medium-and big-ticket corruption is done by those officers who have the power to write an opinion on the file. We have included A and B; the debate is whether to include C or not.

For NGOs,we are saying those funded above Rs 10 lakh by foreign contributions and for corporates,only those owned and controlled by the central government,which are the PSUs. For Trusts,it would have to be public-funded ones only.

M K Venu: Is the idea of giving the Lokpal a constitutional status,as Rahul Gandhi had proposed,off the table completely?

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: Let me make it clear: the report had 100 per cent unanimity in a 30-member committee with 15-odd parties on 13 out of 24 issues. Of the 11 issues on which there was dissent,in 10 cases the dissent was 23 ‘yes’ for the report,and 7-8 ‘no’. On the Class C issue,the vote was 17-13,and again,majority excludes C. So this is an overwhelmingly consensual report from a mini Parliament. Constitutional status had 100 per cent unanimity. Just because Rahul Gandhi gives a good idea,it doesn’t become bad simply because he is the one giving the idea. Incidentally,Team Anna has unanimously supported the constitution idea.

Swaraj Thapa: One of the criticisms against making it into a constitutional body is that every time it needs a change,you have to go to Parliament for a constitutional amendment.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: We are providing a six- or seven-clause general declaration in the Constitution on the Lokpal. The present provisions for the Election Commission are of six provisions. We have never had the need to amend them. Now,look at the consequence of this: if you declare certain principles to be constitutional,you are in fact exponentially enhancing the status of a nascent body. If you have a Lokpal in the Constitution,you can’t simply repeal the Act because the Lokpal is inconvenient to you. So it only strengthens it. On what ground do you oppose it?

Manoj C G: When the majority of Opposition parties are demanding the inclusion of the PM,why don’t you want it?

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: There is no dogma here. The majority,if you were to count numbers alone in the 30-member committee,was for the government model that said include PM,but defer persecution till he demits office. I could,as chairman,have only included the majority view. However,I found that there was a reasonable degree of resonance and support for two other views. These were: include PM but do a subject-matter exclusion on foreign affairs,national-level security,defence,etc,plus some positional safeguards. A third view,mostly by non-Congress members,was to exclude the PM altogether. We are putting all three views as the Committee’s views. Since all have some degree of merit and demerit,let Parliament decide. Now tomorrow,it is entirely possible for the government to say you include the PM with subject matter exclusions and positional safeguards.

Amitabh Sinha: Every time the Congress has piloted the Lokpal Bill,it has excluded the PM. Every non-Congress government has included PM in the Lokpal.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: That’s not so. One of the points against us is that the Pranab Mukherjee Committee recommended inclusion of the PM. I personally don’t think the PM should be per se excluded because it is possible,God forbid,that you have a corrupt PM—there should be some retribution at some point of time. I think the best of both worlds is to include the PM and defer prosecution till the day he demits office. The PM can’t run away,you can prosecute him,and also maintain a certain stability. Now,to take the view on including the PM but allowing subject-matter exclusion. Here’s a hypothetical case: you are PM and you take an alleged bribe in buying guns. Now,buying guns is in one sense national security and therefore excludes,but paying bribes for guns has nothing to do with national security. Now,who will decide if the PM on that particular allegation is within the included or excluded category? Somebody will have to adjudicate. That somebody will be the Lokpal. You have to make sure you don’t make the PM a lame duck PM. Today,you have a situation where fractional politics has led to a stage where some ministers are told that they must resign merely because I have made an allegation against them,the allegation not having been accepted either by the magistrate or by the Supreme Court. If you substitute the PM in place of the ministers,it will be said that he has a moral obligation to resign. You have to take a call on whether or not this will have an impact on stability and good governance.

Vandita Mishra: At Anna Hazare’s fast last Sunday,your report was criticised repeatedly on the about-turn you allegedly did on the inclusion of Group C in Lokpal. Everyone,including Pinaki Misra,a Standing Committee member,said that on that particular day,it was decided that Group C would be included and the next day this decision was changed. What happened in those 24 hours?

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: It is an irrelevant point because in the report,17 Standing Committee members say exclude C and 13 say include C. What is written in the report is the majority consensus,the minority is put in a dissent note. It is interesting because Mr Pinaki Misra is the strongest voter for exclusion of C and he is one of the 17. Remember,the total number of Congress members is 11,at least six non-Congress members wanted C out. Now let me explain the facts: on Wednesday,November 30,there was a meeting. On December 1,a meeting was also prefixed. On November 30,there was an emergent consensus for the first time that C be included. There were,however,two factual premises which were wrong that day. One,it was assumed that talatis and tehsildars would come under Group C. They come under the states,and the state Lokayuktas have rights down to all employees. The second confusion was on the numbers of Group C. The same evening,I got frantic calls followed by detailed letters from four-five members saying they were not aware of the mammoth number of 65 lakh. They asked for the meeting on Thursday. At that meeting,the 17 people clearly voted for exclusion of Group C,including Mr Pinaki Misra. There is no confusion,it is only politics.

Swaraj Thapa: One of the strongest charges by the BJP is that you have gone against the sense of the House expressed in August by not including the citizens’ charter and the lower bureaucracy in Lokpal.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: That’s so wrong,it is tragic. The report quotes the four lines of Pranab Mukherjee’s speech which is supposed to be the sense of the House. It is an in-principle agreement to the citizens’ charter and for state Lokayuktas. It nowhere directly or indirectly remotely suggests that it should be under the same enactment. We have said bring the Citizen’s charter through a separate,strong legislation. It will be autonomous,independent and efficacious.

The whole debate is an ego issue. Team Anna says the whole thing is rotten unless the same Lokpal has everything. I say there is a clash of philosophies and approaches. Team Anna’s proposal is that Lokpal will do preliminary inquiry,investigation,prosecution,it will cover everyone from PM to any employee,including class C employees,all PSUs,excluding NGOs,and it shall have a full citizens’ charter,it shall have full CBI and CVC under the Lokpal.

According to me,this would be possibly one department equal to the entire government of India. You will have a parallel government. And the Lokpal is a non-elected person and so are his nine colleagues. Do you want to hand over democracy in India to this mammoth body? Team Anna must answer that.

On the contrary,our model gives checks and balances and if absolute power corrupts absolutely,there is no reason to believe that absolute power to the Lokpal would keep it exempt from corruption.

D K Singh: Team Anna is planning to proceed with its agitation from December 27. As a parliamentarian,what do you think the government should do?

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: It is for the government to decide. I certainly believe the equation cannot be Team Anna versus political party A or B. The problem with the equation is that it is a case of Team Anna versus Parliament. I have started the report without naming them but by giving a clear compliment to those who got anti-corruption punitive measures to the forefront. It is very creditworthy. That credit cannot extend to the fact that unless you follow my way,it’s the highway. That’s intolerance and absolutely antithetical to parliamentary democracy. You have to realise a contrary viewpoint and there,I think,is Team Anna’s biggest failing.

Vandita Mishra: You just said it’s Team Anna versus Parliament. But with your main Opposition leaders turning up at Jantar Mantar last Sunday,that is clearly not the narrative any longer. It is actually Team Anna versus your government.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: It is something I have very severely criticised. There are certain principles on which parliamentary democracy is based. This Lokpal issue became parliamentary property on August 27. Parliament debated it and referred it to a Standing Committee. It is now travelling back from the Standing Committee to the Cabinet and into Parliament again. I cannot object to the democratic right of Team Anna to sit anywhere in the world. But how,during this process,can a political party justify going and sitting at Jantar Mantar? At Jantar Mantar,you are out of Parliament giving commitments to an extra-constitutional body,in which case,you are undermining Parliament.

Aditya Bali (St Mary’s School,Dwarka): Why did FDI in multi-brand retail fizzle out? Was the government not aware of the pros and cons?

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: We are now in a deliberative mode and trying to build consensus within and without the UPA. But I don’t think there is any admission that the concept of asking for FDI is fundamentally wrong. I think there is a huge amount of pluses in many features of the FDI,a huge number of safeguards. You can always tweak a few things here and there. But to suppose that we are pushing a fundamentally bad thing is wrong. And equally,therefore,the other political stakeholders need to be asked that there has to be a reasonable give-and-take if you want to push forward a reform agenda for the good of the country. But I agree that sufficient necessary consensus building might have been wanting. It is unfortunate that Parliament is increasingly becoming a forum for agitation. A general trend now is that if I am generally opposed to you,I will settle scores by not having you pass legislation in Parliament.

Shreya Gupta (St Mary’s School,Dwarka): What is your view on the right to recall and the right to reject being demanded by Team Anna?

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: My personal view is that the right to recall is a hair-brained idea and is completely impractical. No spot on this planet has had the right to recall in any place which is even 1/100th the size and diversity of India. The right to reject is something that,with a lot of safeguards and operational details,can be considered.

Raj Kamal Jha: You talked about politicians sharing the stage with Team Anna for a few hours. But your government held 9-10 rounds of meetings with the same team knowing very well that there was no meeting ground.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: We had 9-10 hours of an extremely cordial and civilised discourse,discussing everything with them. Now if they feel that only the Jan Lokpal must be passed,why have the Standing Committee at all? You can rubber stamp the Jan Lokpal,why involve Parliament? I am certainly not there in the Standing Committee to rubber stamp the Jan Lokpal.

Kaushal Shroff (student,EXIMS): Wouldn’t you say that Team Anna succeeded in mobilising popular angst whereas there has been a government failure to manage the crisis?

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: The angst is issue-based but it is perceived as angst against the incumbent because it is assumed that the incumbent alone is the person who can solve the issue. Team Anna’s aim should be to mobilise angst against the issue and to solve the issue. If their objective is to channel it against the incumbent,then come into politics. And if they still don’t come into politics,then there is a legitimate inference that they are the benami front for political forces. Why is it that Team Anna has not raised a whisper of objection regarding corruption in any part of India which is not ruled by the Congress?

Transcribed by Geeta Gupta