"We are just an investigative body that gives recommendations. We cannot take any punitive action. "Even for our investigation, we donot have agency assigned to us unlike those in Karnataka, that has one of the best Lokayukta Act. They have 5 IGs, 12 SPs and the whole police force at their disposal and even conduct raids and seize properties of people found guilty. Even in Madhya Pradesh there is an investigate agency for it," sources in the Lokayukta’s office here revealed.
"But the Rajasthan Act does not permit any of this. We mostly do paper work and assign the head of departments to submit a report when we get any complaint from some one in it. It is on this report that we give our recommendation. Many of our recommendations are against ministers and secretaries and sometime even the chief secretary too. Naturally, the government does not want to act on them. It is perhaps for this reason that the that the government has not given its clarification on the reports submitted by the department since 2004 to it," he added.
Not different were the views of social activist in the know of things. "The Rajasthan Act is very weak. But the Act even in other states like Karnataka or Madhya Pradesh are equally weak for it makes the Lokayutkas just a body for recommendations. If the government does not follow it, like in Rajasthan, there is no one to question or to be answered to," they felt.
"In fact, it is this that is driving thousands of people from across states to join Anna Hazare. For the Lokpal Bill proposes that the Act be replicated in the states too and therefore a strong Lokpal Bill would automatically mean a strong Lokayuta Bill," they point out.
"And to add to that the state assembly that seems to be in a perceptual state of upheaval on everything else just does not seem to be bothered that the reports are not tables in the House. There has been no one either from the ruling party or from the Opposition who has brought this point up in the assembly. Politicians, it seems, are just not interested in this. For if the reports are tabled the government would also need to submit an action taken report on them and that is what the government does not seem to be interested in," he added.
According to Nikhil Dey, convenor, National Council for Peoples’ Right to Information, "This shows the extreme importance of the content of the Lokpal Bill. There is a need for a wide debate on it. Just like the Right to Information Act that took years before its formulation, the Bills needs to be discussed to as to ensure as towhat needs to go into the Act."