Thankfully, UPA leaves lokpal to new regime
Much against its wishes and in the face of wiser counsel, the Congress-led UPA Government has virtually decided to abandon its quest to appoint a lokpal. The Government had for two reasons come under serious fire over its decision to proceed with the process of appointing the lokpal. The first was related to the issue of propriety and the second concerned the flawed selection procedure. The opposition parties had pointed out that a Government which had only weeks left in office ought not to press for something as important as the establishment of a lokpal, and that the matter should be left to the incoming regime to tackle. This made eminent sense, because convention has been that an outgoing Government does not take key decisions which can be deferred without creating a constitutional crisis. The UPA regime had all the time to handle the matter. After all, it has been in power for close to 10 years. Yet, in all these years it did precious little to accelerate the process. It woke up only after public protests broke out in the wake of the massive anti-corruption movement that Anna Hazare spearheaded some two years ago. Even after assuring Mr Hazare that it would bring the lokpal Act in Parliament, the Government continued to play hide and seek with the proposed legislation, ensuring delays in the passage of the Bill despite overwhelming support for it from the Opposition. Parliament finally passed the Bill after the Opposition grouped up and compelled the regime to do so — though the Government has shamelessly sought to appropriate to itself all credit for the anti-corruption legislation in the vain hope that the Act would wipe off the taint which the many scams has given the regime.
After the historic enactment of the lokpal, the Government continued to play games in a bid to defang the institution even before it came into being. The procedure it adopted for the selection of the lokpal was so flawed that eminent members of the search panel either declined to be associated with it or pulled out of the process. They pointed out that since the recommendations of the search panel would not be binding on the Government, there was no purpose in being part of a toothless body. leader of the lok Sabha and senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, who was part of the selection committee, publicly protested when Government nominees overruled her objections on the inclusion of a member who, she felt, was inappropriate to the task at hand. It had become clear that the Congress-led regime was seeking to handpick members who would then choose a lokpal that the Congress would be comfortable with, in power or out of it. This explains the hurry that the UPA regime showed in pushing through the appointment, by wanting to summon a meeting of the selection committee by this month-end. Since that meeting has been called off, it is obvious that the Government has realised the futility of persisting with the dubious process.