Aruna Roy, a prominent member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) as well as the NCPRI, says both chairman Pranab Mukherjee and Shanti Bhushan, co-chair of the drafting committee, were written to and had “promised public consultation, but it did not happen”. “The assurance that all solutions to the entire gamut of corrupt practices could be worked out through a strong Lokpal has left us with a great sense of disquiet. Not only because it does not address the arbitrary use of power, but because it is an unrealistic promise to rising expectations that it is an alleviation of all ills through one Bill. It is also a question of the contents of the Jan lokpal draft itself,” Roy says.
In remarks critical of methods deployed by the votaries of the Lokpal, such as opinion polls and sms, Roy says, “There have been public meetings but few consultations on the content of the Act in detail. While gestures and symbolic assent — like sms and referendums — may approve the intent, drafting of an Act needs more informed debate. The Lokpal debate has had its share of general platitudes, we need now to go beyond that.”
The organisation has said that it is “baffled” by those at the forefront of the Bill of being unaccepting of any criticism. Says Roy: “In the polarised discourse, it became impossible to make suggestions and or suggest changes. Every critique was attributed to wrong intent and viewed with suspicion and mistrust by the civil society members of the Joint Committee. Critique of the Bill has evoked sharp reactions, and statements have been made that no amendments or change to the principles or the framework is possible, and that disagreement with the draft was tantamount to promoting corruption.”