Faux pas

The just concluded second independence struggle ended on a gripping melodramatic note than any Indian movie from bollywood, kollywood, tollywood, sandalwood and so on. All concerned appear to be happy and it is All's Well That Ends Well.

Majority of common people felt they have won and have no clue what it is. Team A. is happy that their three major contentious points are placed in the parliament and covered in the form of motion conveying ‘the sense of the house’ even though there is no voting. Some skeptics were caught by surprise as they are unaware of the sense of the house. The mute point is there is no clarity on who is for the Bill drafted by Team A., who is against, who abstained and who are absentees! Besides, it is bereft of thrills like horse trading, cross voting, party whips, walkouts, swarming into the well of Parliament, tearing of bill copies from speaker’s table and so on. It is nothing short of coup de grace delivered by the wise men in parliament.

Not much is known about what went behind the scenes when major political parties met and the deals struck among them. They are all friends in need, indeed! Most of the viwers who listened to Pranabda’s concluding speech on the motion moved by him surely have missed something salient that our parliamentarians surely have not. He gently rebuked all his brothers and sisters in the two houses for pressing panic buttons and reminded them not to worry as they alone have all the power to make changes to proposed Bill when it comes for discussion before passing (for that matter, even after, though with some added effort!) and that silenced everybody in both houses. It is noteworthy that there is no commitment as to by what date the proposed Bill becomes a Law!

In the interest of all parties, in order to bring a strong Lokpl Bill, various party leaders may propose following changes which might get passed unanimously in both the houses:

Floor leaders of DMK party may propose: In order to reduce the workload and help Lokpal admistration spend their valuable time more meaningfully, it's jurisdiction covers the cases involving corruption charges over one crore crores of rupees only, indexed for both the devaluation of Rupee and inflation from base year as 1947.

Floor Leader of RJD party may propose: the limit proposed by DMK should be applied to individual corruption charge, not for combined cases; against individual and not for a group of people. Where more cases and/or more people are involved, the limit should be accordingly multiplied by number of people and number of cases.

Another party leader will propose: In order to serve speedy justice, Lokpal should initiate proceedings within 24 hours of the start of a corrupt action and should deliver judgement within 72 hours else it will become time-barred for Lokpal. In such cases, the convicted, if any, will have a right to appeal in Supreme Court as per IPC.

Another Leader of Congress Party will propose: Lokpal should start with a clean slate. It's jurisdiction starts prospectively with offence(s) committed after the date it has become Law. All the earlier cases and the offences which begun before are outside the purview of Lokpal and they should get de-facto clean chit.