The Agitation of 2011 and the Making of the Act
Chapter Nine
Syllabus topic 1, "Ombudsman"
Pages 35 to 38 of 1033
In one line
A Bill that had failed eight times in forty-three years passed within two years of a public agitation, and the Act that resulted is a compromise between the Government's draft and the movement's draft.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act 2013 was the product of the India Against Corruption movement of 2011, in which Anna Hazare and his associates pressed for the enactment of an alternative draft known as the Jan Lokpal Bill; the Government's Lokpal Bill 2011 was introduced in the Lok Sabha, referred to the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, passed by the Lok Sabha in December 2011, referred by the Rajya Sabha to a Select Committee, and finally passed by both Houses in December 2013, receiving the assent of the President on 1 January 2014 as Act 1 of 2014 and coming into force on 16 January 2014.
Why 2011 and not any earlier year
Three things came together, and an answer that names all three is doing analysis rather than narration.
A run of very large disclosures. The Comptroller and Auditor-General's reports on the allocation of second generation spectrum and on the allocation of coal blocks, and the controversy over the Commonwealth Games of 2010, put figures of a size the public had not seen before into general circulation. Notice that these are audit reports, which is Module IV's subject: the sequence from an audit paragraph to a public agitation to a statute is the clearest single demonstration in this book that the eight labels are one system.
A demonstration that the existing machinery could be moved. The court-monitored investigations of the 1990s and 2000s had shown that institutions could be made to act, but only when a court pushed. That produced a widespread view that the institutions were sound and their independence was not.
An organised campaign with a draft in its hand. The movement did not merely demand action; it produced the Jan Lokpal Bill, a complete alternative draft. A demand with a text behind it is much harder to absorb than a demand without one.
The two drafts, and what separated them
| Question | Government's Bill 2011 | Jan Lokpal draft |
|---|---|---|
| The Prime Minister | Inside, with exclusions | Inside, with fewer exclusions |
| Higher judiciary | Outside | Inside |
| Members of Parliament and conduct in the House | Outside, following article 105 | Inside |
| Investigating agency | Reference to existing agencies | The Lokpal's own investigating wing, with the Central Bureau of Investigation's anti-corruption wing merged into it |
| Lower bureaucracy | Classes with different procedures | All public servants |
| Removal of the Lokpal | Reference to the Supreme Court | Reference to the Supreme Court |
| Citizens' charter and grievances | Separate Bill | Inside the same Act |
| States | Left to the States | Lokayuktas required |
The Agitation of 2011 and the Making of the Act
The single biggest difference is the fourth row. A Lokpal that must ask another agency to investigate is dependent on that agency; a Lokpal with its own force is a new police organisation answerable to nobody elected. The Act of 2013 chose neither cleanly: it created an Inquiry Wing and a Prosecution Wing of its own, and left investigation to be directed to an existing agency, with supervisory powers over that agency while it investigates on the Lokpal's reference. Chapter 160 works out what those supervisory powers amount to.
What the Standing Committee did
The Bill of 2011 went to the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice under Abhishek Singhvi. This is a legislative committee doing exactly the work Module III's fifth label is about, and it is worth pointing at when a question asks for an example of a committee inquiry with a real result.
The Committee took evidence, including from the movement, and reported in December 2011. Its report is why the Act contains the Selection Committee it does, why the Lokpal is a multi-member body with judicial members, and why the classes of public servant in section 14 are graded rather than uniform.
Then the Rajya Sabha referred the Bill to a Select Committee, which reported in November 2012. The Select Committee's recommendations produced the provisions on the States in section 63 and the changes to the powers of search and attachment.
The lesson to draw in an answer. The Act was not written by the movement and it was not written by the Government. It was written, in substantial part, by two parliamentary committees, which is what those committees exist for.
What the Act took from the movement, and what it refused
Took: a multi-member body, not a single officer. The Jan Lokpal draft wanted a bench-like institution and the Act created a Chairperson and up to eight Members.
Took: judicial members. Not fewer than half the Members must be judicial members.
Took: a Prosecution Wing and the power to attach and confiscate. These are far beyond the classical model.
Took: coverage of a very wide class of public servants, including societies and trusts receiving foreign contribution above a threshold.
Refused: the higher judiciary. Judges are outside the Lokpal Act. India's answer to judicial accountability is the Judges (Inquiry) Act 1968 and the in-house procedure, which is Module IV's second half.
Refused: conduct inside Parliament. Anything said or any vote given in Parliament is protected by article 105(2), and the Act does not attempt to reach it. Chapter 1100 explains how far that protection now goes after the decision of 4 March 2024.
The Agitation of 2011 and the Making of the Act
Refused: its own police force. Investigation remains with the agencies.
Refused: grievances. The citizens' charter and the redress of grievances went into a separate Bill, the Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill 2011, and that Bill lapsed. Chapter 330 is about the hole this left.
A worked example: reading the Act as a compromise
Take one provision and see both drafts inside it.
Section 14(1)(a) brings the Prime Minister within the Lokpal's jurisdiction. That is the movement's point, and the point on which every Bill since 1968 had foundered.
The provisos take most of it back. No inquiry into the Prime Minister in matters relating to international relations, external and internal security, public order, atomic energy and space. An inquiry may be held only if the Full Bench considers initiating it and at least two-thirds of the Members approve. The hearing is to be held in camera, and if the Full Bench decides the complaint should be dismissed the records are not published or made available to anyone.
Read the two together and the compromise is visible. The Prime Minister is inside, so the principle is conceded; the conditions are such that an inquiry into a Prime Minister is a rare and heavily guarded event, so the fear is answered. Whether the balance is right is a legitimate question in an answer; that it is a balance and not a victory for either side is the observation that shows understanding.
What this chapter does NOT claim
It does not claim the movement wrote the Act. It did not, and saying so is a common error. The movement made the subject unavoidable; the committees wrote the provisions.
It does not claim the Act is a strong statute or a weak one. That judgment belongs at the end of the module, after the provisions have been read, and chapter 320 makes it.
And it does not claim that an agitation is how laws should be made. The observation to make is narrower and more interesting: a Bill that had lapsed eight times passed when the political cost of letting it lapse a ninth time exceeded the cost of passing it. That is a fact about how the constitutional machinery actually responds to pressure, and it is worth a sentence.
Quick revision
Trigger: the disclosures of 2010 and 2011, including the Comptroller and Auditor-General's reports on spectrum and coal, and the India Against Corruption movement led by Anna Hazare.
The movement's draft: the Jan Lokpal Bill.
Route: Government's Lokpal Bill 2011, to the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, passed by the Lok Sabha in December 2011, referred by the Rajya Sabha to a Select Committee which reported in November 2012, passed by both Houses in December 2013.
The Agitation of 2011 and the Making of the Act
Assent 1 January 2014, as Act 1 of 2014. In force 16 January 2014.
Taken from the movement: a multi-member body, judicial members, a Prosecution Wing, attachment and confiscation, wide coverage.
Refused: the higher judiciary, conduct in Parliament, an own police force, and grievances.
Test yourself
1. Why did a Bill that had failed eight times pass in 2013? Because three things converged: very large disclosures in audit reports and public controversies in 2010 and 2011 which put the subject in general circulation; a widespread view that the existing institutions acted only when a court compelled them; and an organised campaign that produced a complete alternative draft, the Jan Lokpal Bill, so that the demand could not be absorbed by promising to consider the matter.
2. Name the two parliamentary committees that shaped the Act and say what each contributed. The Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, which reported in December 2011 and is the source of the Selection Committee, the multi-member composition with judicial members and the graded classes of public servant; and the Rajya Sabha Select Committee, which reported in November 2012 and is the source of the provisions on the States in section 63 and of changes to the powers of search and attachment.
3. State four things the Act refused to take from the Jan Lokpal draft. Jurisdiction over the higher judiciary; jurisdiction over anything said or any vote given in Parliament, which article 105(2) protects; an investigating force of the Lokpal's own with the Central Bureau of Investigation's anti-corruption wing merged into it; and jurisdiction over citizens' grievances, which was put into a separate Bill that lapsed.
4. Show how section 14 embodies the compromise. It brings the Prime Minister within jurisdiction, which concedes the principle every Bill since 1968 had fought over. It then excludes matters of international relations, external and internal security, public order, atomic energy and space; requires the Full Bench to consider initiating the inquiry with at least two-thirds of the Members approving; requires the hearing to be in camera; and forbids publication of the records if the complaint is dismissed. The principle is granted and the conditions make its exercise rare and guarded.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.