In a historic first, India gets its first Lokpal after nine years of relentless agitation led by anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare and the people’s movement of India against Corruption. Now, even the country’s chowkidaars have a chowkidaar-in-charge to answer to.
Former Supreme Court judge Pinaki Chandra Ghose has been appointed as India’s first Lokpal, an office dedicated to fighting systemic corruption in the country. While some argue that this may just be another election gimmick, this is a momentous decision which has the potential to pave the way for radical transformation in India’s democratic process.
What led up to this?
The Lokpal Act was passed in 2013 following a nationwide anti-corruption movement spurred by Hazare’s hunger strike, which demanded the appointment of Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in the states to probe and prosecute corruption complaints against political leaders and public servants, including the Prime Minister and chief ministers.
But the Centre’s procrastination in selecting these officials, despite nods from the Supreme Court and Parliament, came under massive scrutiny and was followed by several controversies insinuating large-scale corruption. This led to Hazare going on an indefinite hunger strike as recently as February.
The appointment comes when Twitter is abuzz with both praise and ridicule for BJP’s last-minute “Main Bhi Chowkidaar” campaign that has seen the party’s rank and file add the prefix “chowkidaar” before their usernames. This has necessitated the question, who will watch the watchmen?
What makes Ghose the perfect gatekeeper?
Justice Pinaki Ghose who retired from the Supreme Court in 2017, is currently serving as a member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Born on May 28, 1952, (retd.) Justice Ghose was born into a family of lawyers; his father, late Justice Sambhu Chandra Ghose was a former chief justice of Calcutta High Court. Ghose himself happens to be a fifth-generation lawyer, having descended from Hara Chandra Ghose, the first Indian Chief Judge of Calcutta’s Sadar Dewani Adalat in 1867.
Ghose obtained his law degree from the University of Calcutta and was enrolled as an advocate in 1976. He has practised in civil, commercial, constitutional and company matters in the Calcutta high court and was appointed a permanent judge there on July 17, 1997.
Having presided over some revolutionary judgements during his tenure at the apex court, Ghose is believed to have the highest regard for the Indian judiciary and zero tolerance towards contempt of court. In fact, he was part of the bench which handed out punishment to then Calcutta High Court judge CS Karnan for a visible act of contempt. He also railed against political parties using photographs of politicians in their advertisements.
One key verdict befitting of the new Lokpal is his 2017 ruling on the disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalitha and her aide VK Sasikala. They were found guilty of misusing public office to launder ill-gotten wealth for purchasing huge properties in the name of masked fronts, turning political sentiments in the state against the AIADMK.
Another politically significant verdict that Ghose was a part of was the one that restored criminal conspiracy charges against senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Uma Bharti, Murli Manohar Joshi and 13 others for their involvement in the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition. Ghose also played an instrumental role in expediting the long-pending criminal trial by invoking Article 142 to transfer it to the Rae Bareilly Magistrate court, clubbing it with criminal proceedings in the Lucknow CBI Court.
Lokpal selection
Ghose’s name was cleared and recommended by the high-powered selection panel, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and supposedly comprising of the Leader of the Opposition, although reports suggest that Mallikarjun Kharge gave the discussions leading up to Ghose’s appointment a miss.
When asked about this, he told The Hindu, The appointment of Lokpal ahead of the election is an attempt to mislead people by claiming that they [BJP] had done all they had promised. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should answer why he had not done it in the last four years.”
Kharge rued that there was no place for the leader of the Opposition. “We had demanded a provision in the Lokpal Bill to accommodate the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of the second largest party in Parliament as a member of Lokpal. The ruling party did not allow it,” he said. “The present appointment of Lokpal is not done with a commitment to fight corruption. It is just an election gimmick, he said.
Will Lokpal’s selective powers limit its role as watchdog?
Meanwhile, the jurisdiction of the Lokpal, which is empowered to bring the Prime Minister under its purview, is bound by several clauses. For example, to indict the PM, Ghose must have the unanimous support of the full bench of the Lokpal and at least two-thirds of its members, to approve an inquiry.
Even then, a Lokpal-led inquiry does not extend to allegations against the PM in matters of international relations, external and internal security, public order, atomic energy, and space. If conducted at all, it must be held on camera, according to News18.
Furthermore, if the Lokpal comes to the conclusion that the complaint deserves to be dismissed, the records of the inquiry are not to be published or made available to anyone.
What’s next
No sooner was Ghose’s appointment announced than Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which rose to power on the plank of anti-corruption protests, and whose chief Arvind Kejriwal lent Hazare’s movement its tour de force, declared it would file a corruption complaint against Modi on the Rafale fighter jet deal and Sahara-Birla papers case, in the soon-to-be-constituted Lokpal.
According to Times Now, other members of the Lokpal Committee will be finalised by next week.
Senior AAP leader Gopal Rai noted that the BJP felt the growing pressure to form the Lokpal from courts as well as Hazare’s allies, in the same way then Congress-led UPA government first tried to suppress the movement, but gave into public sentiment afterward, forming a law at the fag-end of its term. The Lokpal’s appointment marks the culmination of the most intense peoples’ struggle in India, he said.
Charting the history of the movement and why it matters
The massive anti-corruption movement in 2011, led by Hazare, had galvanised young people into chanting I am Anna, while his fast-unto-death called attention to the large-scale embezzlement of public funds under the UPA government, turning it into a key poll issue, and even sowed the seeds for the formation of the AAP.
Hazare went on another indefinite hunger strike on January 30 in Ralegan Siddhi, Maharashtra, railing against the non-fulfillment of assurances, made to him both by the Centre and the state government, concerning the appointment of an ombudsman as an anti-corruption watchdog and the passage of the Lokayukta Act in Maharashtra.
Speaking to Mirror Now, Hazare in February severely criticised the Narendra Modi government for failing to actively curb endemic political corruption during its five-year regime, despite making promises to the electorate in 2014. He rued that the very same people who had benefitted from his agitations in 2011 and 2014 had turned their backs on his demands and nothing had been done to implement them so far.
Claiming that the central government is misleading the masses and leading the nation to autocracy, Hazare further condemned the BJP-led state government, saying For how long will the lies continue? This government has let down the people of the country. The state governments claims that 90 percent of my demands have been conceded are also false.”
He also called Modi out in particular, for failing to resolve the agrarian crisis, which is particularly acute in Indias rural heartland states, including Maharashtra. The movement may have succeeded in giving the country its first independent anti-corruption body, but the fight is far from over. The five-year delay has sown deep doubts about the efficacy of a Lokpal and justifiably so. Whether the newly-minted office will introduce a sense of accountability amidst the Indian bureaucracy, military, and the police, remains to be seen.
But there is cause for hope that the Lokpal will preserve the sanctity of the Right to Information and the Information Commission, blow the whistle on dubious appraisal reports and punishment postings, and indict those misusing office.
Prarthana Mitra is a Staff Writer at Qrius