What is the Jan Lokpal Bill?

The Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen's ombudsman Bill) is a draft anti-corruption bill drawn up by prominent civil society activists seeking the appointment of a Jan Lokpal, an independent body that would investigate corruption cases, complete the investigation within a year and envisages trial in the case getting over in the next one year.

Drafted by Justice Santosh Hegde (former Supreme Court Judge and former Lokayukta of Karnataka), Prashant Bhushan (Supreme Court Lawyer) and Arvind Kejriwal (RTI activist), the draft Bill envisages a system where a corrupt person found guilty would go to jail within two years of the complaint being made and his ill-gotten wealth being confiscated. It also seeks power to the Jan Lokpal to prosecute politicians and bureaucrats without government permission.

The Jan Lokpal Bill aims to effectively deter corruption, redress grievances of citizens, and protect whistle-blowers. If made into law, the bill would create an independent ombudsman body called theLokpal (Sanskrit: protector of the people). The body would be empowered to register and investigate complaints of corruption against politicians and bureaucrats without prior government approval.

The prefix Jan (translation: citizens) signifies the fact that these improvements include inputs provided by "ordinary citizens" through an activist-driven, non-governmental public consultation.

History

The concept of a constitutional ombudsman was first proposed by the Law Minister Ashoke Kumar Sen in parliament in the early 1960s. The first Jan Lokpal Bill was proposed by Mr Shanti Bhushan in 1968 and passed in the 4th Lok Sabha in 1969 but could not get through the Rajya Sabha, because of obvious reasons.. Subsequently, lokpal bills were introduced in 1971, 1977, 1985( again byAshoke Kumar Sen when serving as Law Minister in the Rajiv Gandhi cabinet, 1989, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2005 and in 2008, yet they were never passed.42 years after its first introduction, the Lokpal Bill is still pending in India.

The Lokpal Bill provides for filing complaints of corruption against the prime minister, other ministers, and MPs with the ombudsman. The Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) while recommending the constitution of Lokpal was convinced that such an institution was justified not only for removing the sense of injustice from the minds of deeply affected citizens but also necessary to instill public confidence in the efficiency of the administrative machinery. Following this, the Lokpal Bill was for the first time presented during the fourth Lok Sabha in 1968, and was passed there in 1969.

However while it was pending in the Rajya Sabha, the Lok Sabha was dissolved, and so the bill was not passed at that time. The bill was revived several times in the subsequent years, most recently in 2008. Each time, after the bill was introduced to the house, it was referred to some committee for improvements --- a joint committee of parliament, or a departmental standing committee of the Home Ministry and before the government could take a final stand on the issue, the house was dissolved again. Several conspicuous flaws have been cited in the recent draft of the Lokpal Bill. The basic idea of the lokpal is borrowed from the office of ombudsman, which has Administrative Reforms Committee of a lokpal at the Centre, and lokayukta(s) in the states.

Anna Hazare fought for this bill to get passed and it did on Dec 27,2011 around 9:30 with modifications (proposed as the Jan Lokpal Bill). However, Hazare, his team and other political parties claim that the Lokpal Bill passed is weak and would not serve its intended purpose. So the proposed bill by the ruling Congress Party is yet to get acceptance from the Rajya Sabha. As of Dec 29, 2011, the bill has been deferred to the next parliamentary session amid lots of drama and disruption by the LJP, RJD and SP parties. The media at large and the opposition parties have claimed the situation to be staged.

Timeline of Lokpal and cost

The Lokpal Bill has been introduced in the Parliament a total of eight times since 1968.

1968 – 3 lakh (300,000)
1971 – 20 lakh (2 million)
1977 – 25 lakh (2.5 million)
1985 – 25 lakh
1989 – 35 lakh (3.5 million) – PM under lokpal
1996 – 1 crore (10 million) – PM under lokpal
2001 – 35 crore (350 million) – PM under lokpal
2011 – 1700 crore (17 billion)

Current anti-corruption laws and organizations

While India currently has a number of laws intended to stem corruption, supporters of the Jan Lokpal Bill have argued that the current laws are inadequate in light of the large number and size of scandals in India.

Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)

CVC has a staff strength of between 200-250 employees. If one went by international standards, India needs 28,500 anti-corruption staff in CVC to check corruption of 57 lakh employees.

There has been considerable delay in many cases for grant of sanction for prosecution against corrupt government officials. The permission to prosecute such officials acts as a deterrent in the drive to eradicate corruption and bring transparency in the system.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)

Because the CBI is under the control of the Central Government, it needs a go-ahead from central agencies to initiate criminal proceedings. By then, the accused can take advantage of such a situation. He can get time to pressure the complainant and intimidate him so that the case be withdrawn.

In the Jan Lokpal Bill, it is proposed that both of these wings be merged into the Lokpal. This would enable the Lokpal to be completely independent of the government and free from ministerial influence in its investigations.

Deficiencies in the present anti-corruption systems Central Government level:

At central Government level, there is Central Vigilance Commission, Departmental vigilance and CBI. CVC and Departmental vigilance deal with vigilance (disciplinary proceedings) aspect of a corruption case and CBI deals with criminal aspect of that case.

Central Vigilance Commission: CVC is the apex body for all vigilance cases in Government of India.

However, it does not have adequate resources commensurate with the large number of complaints that it receives. CVC is a very small set up with a staff strength less than 200. It is supposed to check corruption in more than 1500 central government departments and ministries, some of them being as big as Central Excise, Railways, Income Tax etc. Therefore, it has to depend on the vigilance wings of respective departments and forwards most of the complaints for inquiry and report to them. While it monitors the progress of these complaints, there is delay and the complainants are often disturbed by this. It directly enquires into a few complaints on its own, especially when it suspects motivated delays or where senior officials could be implicated. But given the constraints of manpower, such number is really small.
CVC is merely an advisory body. Central Government Departments seek CVC’s advice on various corruption cases. However, they are free to accept or reject CVC’s advice. Even in those cases, which are directly enquired into by the CVC, it can only advise government. CVC mentions these cases of non-acceptance in its monthly reports and the Annual Report to Parliament. But these are not much in focus in Parliamentary debates or by the media.
Experience shows that CVC’s advice to initiate prosecution is rarely accepted and whenever CVC advised major penalty, it was reduced to minor penalty. Therefore, CVC can hardly be treated as an effective deterrent against corruption.
CVC cannot direct CBI to initiate enquiries against any officer of the level of Joint Secretary and above on its own. The CBI has to seek the permission of that department, which obviously would not be granted if the senior officers of that department are involved and they could delay the case or see to it that permission would not be granted.
CVC does not have powers to register criminal case. It deals only with vigilance or disciplinary matters.
It does not have powers over politicians. If there is an involvement of a politician in any case, CVC could at best bring it to the notice of the Government. There are several cases of serious corruption in which officials and political executive are involved together.
It does not have any direct powers over departmental vigilance wings. Often it is seen that CVC forwards a complaint to a department and then keeps sending reminders to them to enquire and send report. Many a times, the departments just do not comply. CVC does not have any really effective powers over them to seek compliance of its orders.
CVC does not have administrative control over officials in vigilance wings of various central government departments to which it forwards corruption complaints. Though the government does consult CVC before appointing the Chief Vigilance Officers of various departments, however, the final decision lies with the government. Also, the officials below CVO are appointed/transferred by that department only. Only in exceptional cases, if the CVO chooses to bring it to the notice of CVC, CVC could bring pressure on the Department to revoke orders but again such recommendations are not binding.
Appointments to CVC are directly under the control of ruling political party, though the leader of the Opposition is a member of the Committee to select CVC and VCs. But the Committee only considers names put up before it and that is decided by the Government. The appointments are opaque.
CVC Act gives supervisory powers to CVC over CBI. However, these supervisory powers have remained ineffective. CVC does not have the power to call for any file from CBI or to direct them to do any case in a particular manner. Besides, CBI is under administrative control of DOPT rather than CVC.
Therefore, though CVC is relatively independent in its functioning, it neither has resources nor powers to enquire and take action on complaints of corruption in a manner that meets the expectations of people or act as an effective deterrence against corruption.

Departmental Vigilance Wings: Each Department has a vigilance wing, which is manned by officials from the same department (barring a few which have an outsider as Chief Vigilance Officer. However, all the officers under him belong to the same department).

Since the officers in the vigilance wing of a department are from the same department and they can be posted to any position in that department anytime, it is practically impossible for them to be independent and objective while inquiring into complaints against their colleagues and seniors. If a complaint is received against a senior officer, it is impossible to enquire into that complaint because an officer who is in vigilance today might get posted under that senior officer some time in future.
In some departments, especially in the Ministries , some officials double up as vigilance officials. It means that an existing official is given additional duty of vigilance also. So, if some citizen complaints against that officer, the complaint is expected to be enquired into by the same officer. Even if someone complaints against that officer to the CVC or to the Head of that Department or to any other authority, the complaint is forwarded by all these agencies and it finally lands up in his own lap to enquire against himself. Even if he recuses himself from such inquiries , still they have to be handled by those who otherwise report to him. There are indeed examples of such absurdity.
There have been instances of the officials posted in vigilance wing by that department having had a very corrupt past. While in vigilance, they try to scuttle all cases against themselves. They also turn vigilance wing into a hub of corruption, where cases are closed for consideration.
Departmental vigilance does not investigate into criminal aspect of any case. It does not have the powers to register an FIR.
They also do not have any powers against politicians.
Since the vigilance wing is directly under the control of the Head of that Department, it is practically impossible for them to enquire against senior officials of that department.
Therefore, , the vigilance wing of any department is seen to softpedal on genuine complaints or used to enquire against " inconvenient" officers.

CBI: CBI has powers of a police station to investigate and register FIR. It can investigate any case related to a Central Government department on its own or any case referred to it by any state government or any court.

CBI is overburdened and does not accept cases even where amount of defalcation is alleged to be around Rs 1 crore.
CBI is directly under the administrative control of Central Government.
So, if a complaint pertains to any minister or politician who is part of a ruling coalition or a bureaucrat who is close to them, CBI's credibility has suffered and there is increasing public perception that it cannot do a fair investigation and that it is influenced to to scuttle these cases.
Again, because CBI is directly under the control of Central Government, CBI is perceived to have been often used to settle scores against inconvenient politicians.

Therefore, if a citizen wants to make a complaint about corruption by a politician or an official in the Central Government, there isn’t a single anti-corruption agency which is effective and independent of the government, whose wrongdoings are sought to be investigated. CBI has powers but it is not independent. CVC is independent but it does not have sufficient powers or resources.

A look at the salient features of Jan Lokpal Bill:

1. An institution called LOKPAL at the centre and LOKAYUKTA in each state will be set up

2. Like Supreme Court and Election Commission, they will be completely independent of the governments. No minister or bureaucrat will be able to influence their investigations.

3. Cases against corrupt people will not linger on for years anymore: Investigations in any case will have to be completed in one year. Trial should be completed in next one year so that the corrupt politician, officer or judge is sent to jail within two years.

4. The loss that a corrupt person caused to the government will be recovered at the time of conviction.

5. How will it help a common citizen: If any work of any citizen is not done in prescribed time in any government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be given as compensation to the complainant.

6. So, you could approach Lokpal if your ration card or passport or voter card is not being made or if police is not registering your case or any other work is not being done in prescribed time. Lokpal will have to get it done in a month's time. You could also report any case of corruption to Lokpal like ration being siphoned off, poor quality roads been constructed or panchayat funds being siphoned off. Lokpal will have to complete its investigations in a year, trial will be over in next one year and the guilty will go to jail within two years.

7. But won't the government appoint corrupt and weak people as Lokpal members? That won't be possible because its members will be selected by judges, citizens and constitutional authorities and not by politicians, through a completely transparent and participatory process.

8. What if some officer in Lokpal becomes corrupt? The entire functioning of Lokpal/ Lokayukta will be completely transparent. Any complaint against any officer of Lokpal shall be investigated and the officer dismissed within two months.

9. What will happen to existing anti-corruption agencies? CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal. Lokpal will have complete powers and machinery to independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician.

10. It will be the duty of the Lokpal to provide protection to those who are being victimized for raising their voice against corruption.

Difference between government's and activists' drafts

Highlights

Difference between Jan Lokpal Bill and Draft Bill 2010
Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen's Ombudsman Bill)	Draft Lokpal Bill (2010)
Lokpal will have powers to initiate suo motu action or receive complaints of corruption from the general public.	Lokpal will have no power to initiate suo motu action or receive complaints of corruption from the general public. It can only probe complaints forwarded by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha or the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
Lokpal will have the power to initiate prosecution of anyone found guilty.	Lokpal will only be an Advisory Body with a role limited to forwarding reports to a "Competent Authority".
Lokpal will have police powers as well as the ability to register FIRs.	Lokpal will have no police powers and no ability to register an FIR or proceed with criminal investigations.
Lokpal and the anti corruption wing of the CBI will be one independent body.	The CBI and Lokpal will be unconnected.
Punishments will be a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of up to life imprisonment.	Punishment for corruption will be a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of up to 7 years.

Details

The following table details differences between the Government and activist backed versions.

Comparison SlideShow uploaded by India Against Corruption.

Issue	The Jan Lokpal Bill	Government's Lokpal Bill
Prime Minister	PM can be investigated with permission of seven member Lokpal bench.	PM can be investigated by Lokpal after she/he vacates office.
Judiciary	Can be investigated, though high level members may be investigated only with permission of a seven member Lokpal bench.	Judiciary is exempt and will be covered by a separate "judicial accountability bill".
Conduct of MPs	Can be investigated with permission of seven member Lokpal bench.	Can be investigated, but their conduct within Parliament, such as voting, cannot be investigated.
Lower bureaucracy	All public servants would be included.	Only senior officers (Group A) will be covered.
Anti-Corruption wing of theCentral Bureau of Investigation (CBI)	The Anti-Corruption wing of the CBI will be merged into the Lokpal.	The Anti-Corruption wing of the CBI cannot be merged into the Lokpal.
Removal of Lokpal members and Chair	Any person can bring a complaint to the Supreme Court, who can then recommend removal of any member to the President.	Any "aggrieved party" can raise a complaint to the President, who will refer the matter to the CJI.
Removal of Lokpal staff and officers	Complaints against Lokpal staff will be handled by independent boards set-up in each state, composed of retired bureaucrats, judges, and civil society members.	Lokpal will conduct inquiries into its own behaviour.
Lokayukta	Lokayukta and other local/state anti-corruption agency would remain in place.	All state anti-corruption agencies would be closed and responsibilities taken over by centralised Lokpal.
Whistleblower protection	Whistleblowers are protected by Lokpal.	No protection granted to whistleblowers by Lokpal.
Punishment for corruption	Lokpal can either directly impose penalties, or refer the matter to the courts. Penalties can include removal from office, imprisonment, and recovery of assets from those who benefited from the corruption.	Lokpal can only refer matters to the courts, not take any direct punitive actions. Penalties remain equivalent to those in current laws.
Investigatory powers	Lokpal can obtain wiretaps (to make a connection to a telegraph or telephone wire in order to obtain information secretly), issue rogatory letters, and recruit investigating officers. Cannot issue contempt orders.	Lokpal can issue contempt orders, and has the ability to punish those in contempt. No authority to obtain wiretaps, issue rogatory letters, or recruit investigating officers.
False, frivolous and vexatious complaints	Lokpal can issue fines for frivolous complaints (including frivolous complaints against Lokpal itself), with a maximum penalty of Rs 100,000.	Court system will handle matters of frivolous complaints. Courts can give 2–5 years imprisonment and fines of Rs 25,000 to 200,000.
NGOs	NGOs not within the scope due to their role in exposing corruption.	NGOs are within the scope and can be investigated.

Critique of Government’s Lokpal Bill 2010(Proposed to be passed as an ordinance by the Central government)

UPA government has been under constant attack due to exposure of one scam after the other on the issue of corruption. In order to salvage its image, the government proposes to set up an institution of Lokpal to check corruption at high places. However the remedy seems to be worse than the disease. Rather than strengthening anti corruption systems, this bill if passed, will end up weakening whatever exists in the name of anti corruption today.

The principal objections to government’s proposal are as follows:

Lokpal will not have any power to either initiate action suo motu in any case or even receive complaints of corruption from general public. The general public will make complaints to the speaker of Lok Sabha or chairperson of Rajya Sabha. Only those complaints forwarded by Speaker of Lok Sabha/ Chairperson of Rajya Sabha to Lokpal would be investigated by Lokpal. This not only severely restricts the functioning of Lokpal, it also provides a tool in the hands of the ruling party to have only those cases referred to Lokpal which pertain to political opponents (since speaker is always from the ruling party). It will also provide a tool in the hands of the ruling party to protect its own politicians.
Lokpal has been proposed to be an advisory body. Lokpal, after enquiry in any case, will forward its report to the competent authority. The competent authority will have final powers to decide whether to take action on Lokpal’s report or not. In the case of cabinet ministers, the competent authority is Prime Minister. In the case of PM and MPs the competent authority is Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha, as the case may be. In the coalition era when the government of the day depends upon the support of its political partners, it will be impossible for the PM to act against any of his cabinet ministers on the basis of Lokpal’s report. For instance, if there were such a Lokpal today and if Lokpal made a recommendation to the PM to prosecute A. Raja, obviously the PM will not have the political courage to initiate prosecution against A. Raja. Likewise, if Lokpal made a report against the PM or any MP of the ruling party, will the house ever pass a resolution to prosecute the PM or the ruling party MP? Obviously, they will never do that.
The bill is legally unsound. Lokpal has not been given police powers. Therefore Lokpal cannot register an FIR. Therefore all the enquiries conducted by Lokpal will tantamount to “preliminary enquiries”. Even if the report of Lokpal is accepted, who will file the chargesheet in the court? Who will initiate prosecution? Who will appoint the prosecution lawyer? The entire bill is silent on that.
The bill does not say what will be the role of CBI after this bill. Can CBI and Lokpal investigate the same case or CBI will lose its powers to investigate politicians? If the latter is true, then this bill is meant to completely insulate politicians from any investigations whatsoever which are possible today through CBI.
There is a strong punishment for “frivolous” complaints. If any complaint is found to be false and frivolous, Lokpal will have the power to send the complainant to jail through summary trial but if the complaint were found to be true, the Lokpal will not have the power to send the corrupt politicians to jail! So the bill appears to be meant to browbeat, threaten and discourage those fighting against corruption.
Lokpal will have jurisdiction only on MPs, ministers and PM. It will not have jurisdiction over officers. The officers and politicians do not indulge in corruption separately. In any case of corruption, there is always an involvement of both of them. So according to government’s proposal, every case would need to be investigated by both CVC and Lokpal. So now, in each case, CVC will look into the role of bureaucrats while Lokpal will look into the role of politicians. Obviously the case records will be with one agency and the way government functions it will not share its records with the other agency. It is also possible that in the same case the two agencies arrive at completely opposite conclusions. Therefore it appears to be a sure way of killing any case.
Lokpal will consist of three members, all of them being retired judges. There is no reason why the choice should be restricted to judiciary. By creating so many post retirement posts for judges, the government will make the retiring judges vulnerable to government influences just before retirement as is already happening in the case of retiring bureaucrats. The retiring judges, in the hope of getting post retirement employment would do the bidding of the government in their last few years.
The selection committee consists of Vice President, PM, Leaders of both houses, Leaders of opposition in both houses, Law Minister and Home minister. Barring Vice President, all of them are politicians whose corruption Lokpal is supposed to investigate. So there is a direct conflict of interest. Also selection committee is heavily loaded in favor of the ruling party. Effectively ruling party will make the final selections. And obviously ruling party will never appoint strong and effective Lokpal.
Lokpal will not have powers to investigate any case against PM, which deals with foreign affairs, security and defence. This means that corruption in defence deals will be out of any scrutiny whatsoever. It will become impossible to investigate into any Bofors in future.

Therefore, the draft Lokpal ordinance is eyewash, a sham. It is sad that despite so much of embarrassment caused to UPA due to so many scams, UPA is still making a fool of the people in the form of this draft ordinance.

Criticisms of the Jan Lokpal Bill

Naïve approach

The bill has been criticised as being naïve in its approach to combating corruption. According to Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President of the Center for Policy Research Delhi, the bill "is premised on an institutional imagination that is at best naïve; at worst subversive of representative democracy". The very concept of a Lokpal concept has received criticism from HRD minister Kapil Sibal in that it will lack accountability, be oppressive and undemocratic.

Extra-constitutional

The pro-bill activist Arvind Kejriwal rejects the claim of Lokpal being extra-constitutional with the explanation that the body will only investigate corruption offences and submit a charge sheet which would then tried and prosecuted through trial courts and higher courts, and that other bodies with equivalent powers in other matters exist. The proposed bill also lists clear provisions for the Supreme Court to abolish the Lokpal.

Despite these clarifications, critics feel that the exact judicial powers of Lokpal are rather unclear in comparison with its investigative powers. The bill requires "...members of Lokpal and the officers in investigation wing of Lokpal shall be deemed to be police officers". Although some supporters have denied any judicial powers of Lokpal, the government and some critics have recognised Lokpal to have quasi-judicial powers.

The bill also states that "Lokpal shall have, and exercise the same jurisdiction powers and authority in respect of contempt of itself as a High court has and may exercise, and, for this purpose, the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 (Central Act 70 of 1971) shall have the effect subject to the modification that the references therein to the High Court shall be construed as including a reference to the Lokpal." Review of proceedings and decisions by Lokpal is prevented in the bill by the statement "...no proceedings or decision of the Lokpal shall be liable to be challenged, reviewed, quashed or called in question in any court of ordinary Civil Jurisdiction.". As a result, how the trials will be conducted is unclear in the bill, although the bill outlines requiring judges for special courts, presumably to conduct trial that should be completed within one year. The critics hence express concern that, without judicial review, Lokpal could potentially become an extra-constitutional body with investigative and judicial powers whose decisions cannot be reviewed in regular courts.

Scope

The matter of whether the Indian Prime Minister and higher judiciary should or should not be prosecutable by the Lokpal remains as one of the major issues of dispute. Anna's own nominee for co-chairing the joint panel Justice Verma, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, has expressed his constitutional objections for including the Prime Minister and higher judiciary under Lokpal.According to him, "this would foul with the basic structure of the constitution".

Governments approach about Whistleblower protection & Citizen-charter

In a bid to narrow differences on the anti-graft legislation and provide itself some political cover against the threat of a public protest, the Government introduced Citizen's Charter and Grievance Redressal Bill 2011 or Citizen-charter bill in Dec 20, 2011 along with the already introduced Whistleblower Protection Law or Public Interest Disclosure (Protection of Information) Bill – 2010 back in August 2011.

Responding to this move, Team Anna issued a statement that: “The government proposes to remove CBI, judiciary, citizen charter, whistle blower protection, Group C and Group D employeesfrom the Lokpal jurisdiction. Wouldn't that reduce Lokpal to an empty tin box with no powers and functions?”. This issue remains open between Team Anna & Government.

Campaign for the Jan Lokpal Bill

The first version of the Lokpal Bill drafted by the Government of India headed by United Progressive Alliance in 2010 was considered ineffective by anti-corruption activists from the civil society. These activists, under the banner of India Against Corruption, came together to draft a citizen's version of the Lokpal Bill later called the Jan Lokpal. Public awareness drives and protest marches were carried out to campaign for the bill. However, public support for the Jan Lokpal Bill draft started gathering steam after Anna Hazare, a noted Gandhian announced that he would hold an indefinite fast from 5 April 2011 for the passing of the Lokpal/ Jan Lokpal bill.Anna Hazare announces fast unto death till Jan Lokpal Bill enacted". The Economic Times. 4 April 2011. Archived from the original on 5 April 2011. Retrieved 5 April 2011. The government has however accepted it.

To dissuade Hazare from going on an indefinite hunger strike, the Prime Minister's Office directed the ministries of personnel and law to examine how the views of social activists can be included in the Lokpal Bill. On 5 April, the National Advisory Council rejected the Lokpal bill drafted by the government. Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal then met social activists Swami Agnivesh and Arvind Kejriwal on 7 April to find ways to bridge differences over the bill. However, no consensus could be reached on 7 April owing to several differences of opinion between the social activists and the Government.

Fast & Agitation – Phase 1

On 7 April 2011 Anna Hazare called for a Jail Bharo Andolan (translation: Fill jail movement) from 13 April to protest against the Government's rejection of their demands. Anna Hazare also claimed that his group had received six crore (60 million) text messages of support and that he had further backing from a large number of Internet activists. The outpouring of support was largely free of political overtones; political parties were specifically discouraged from participating in the movement. The fast ended on 9 April, after 98 hours, when the Government accepted most demands due to public pressure. Anna Hazare set an 15 August deadline for the passing of the bill in the Parliament, failing which he would start a hunger strike from 16 August. The fast also led to the Government of India agreeing to set up a Joint Drafting Committee, which would complete its work by 30 June 2011.

Drafting Committee

The drafting committee was officially formed on 8 April 2011. It consisted of the following ten members, including five from the government and five drawn from the civil society.

Member	Qualifications and status
Pranab Mukherjee	Finance Minister, Chairman
Shanti Bhushan	Former Minister of Law and Justice, Co-Chairman
P. Chidambaram	Minister of Home Affairs
Veerappa Moily	Minister of Corporate Affairs
Kapil Sibal	Minister for Human Resource & Development
Salman Khursid	Minister of Law
Anna Hazare	Social Activist
Prashant Bhushan	Lawyer
N. Santosh Hegde	Former Lokayukta (Karnataka) and Supreme Court Justice
Arvind Kejriwal	RTI Activist.

The Government's handling of the formation of the draft committee, involving the civil society in preparation of the draft Lokpal bill, was criticized by various political parties including BJP, BJD, TDP, AIADMK, CPI-M, RJD, JD(U) and Samajwadi Party.

The committee failed to agree on the terms of a compromise bill and the government introduced its own version of the bill in the Parliament in August 2011.

Fast & Agitation – Phase 2

According to Anna and his team, the Government's version of the Lokpal bill was weak and would facilitate the corrupt to go free apart from several other differences. To protest against this, Anna Hazare announced an "Indefinite Fast" (not to be confused with "Fast until death"). Anna and his team asked for permission from Delhi Police for their fast and agitation at Jantar Mantar or JP Park. Delhi Police gave its permission with certain conditions. These conditions were considered by team Anna as restrictive and against the fundamental constitutional rights and they decided to defy the conditions. Delhi Police imposed Sec 144 CrPC.

On 16 August, Anna Hazare was taken into preventive custody by Delhi Police. Senior officers of Delhi Police reached Anna Hazare's flat early in the morning and informed him that he could not leave his home. However, Hazare turned down the request following which he was detained.Anna in his recorded address to the nation before his arrest asked his supporters not to stop the agitation and urged the protesters to remain peaceful.Other members of "India Against Corruption", Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Kumar Vishwas and Manish Sisodia were also taken into preventive custody. Kiran Bedi described the situation as resembling a kind of Emergency (referring to the Emergency imposed in 1975 by the Indira Gandhi Govt.).

The arrest resulted in a huge public outcry and under pressure, the government released him in the evening of 16 August. However, Anna Hazare refused to come out of jail, starting his indefinite fast from Jail itself. Manish Sisodia explained his situation as, "Anna said that he left home to go to JP Park to conduct his fast and that is exactly where he would go from here (Tihar Jail). He has refused to be released till he is given a written, unconditional permission". Unwilling to use forces owing to the sensitive nature of the case, the jail authorities had no option but to let Anna spend the night inside Tihar. Later on 17 August, Delhi Police permitted Anna Hazare and team to use the Ramlila Maidan for the proposed fast and agitation, withdrawing most of the contentious provisions they had imposed earlier.The indefinite fast and agitation began in Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi, and went on for around 288 hours (12 days from 16-August-2011 to 28-August-2011). Some of the Lokpal drafting committee members became dissatisfied with Hazare's tactics as the hunger strike went on for the 11th day: Santosh Hegde, a member of Hazare team who headed the Karnataka Lokayukta, strongly criticised Hazare for his insistence of "having his way", concluding “I feel I am not in Team Anna any more by the way things are going. These (telling Parliament what to do) are not democratic things.” Swami Agnivesh, another central figure in the Hazare group also distanced himself.

Notable supporters and opposition

In addition to the activists responsible for creating and organising support for the bill, a wide variety of other notable individuals have also stated that they support this bill. Spiritual leaders Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Yog Guru Ramdev expressed support. Notable politicians who indicated support for the bill include Ajit Singh and Manpreet Singh Badal as well as the principal opposition party, Bharatiya Janta Party. In addition, numerous Bollywood actors, directors, and musicians publicly approved of the bill.

Notable opposition to the activists' version of the Bill was expressed by HRD minister Kapil Sibal and other Congress leaders; Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamta Banerjee; Punjab Chief Minister and Akali Dal leader Prakash Singh Badal; Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Jagdish Sharan Verma.Although BJP showed their support earlier, there were reports that BJP shared Congress's concern "over letting the civil society gain the upper hand over Parliament in lawmaking". The All-India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, representing the Dalits and backward castes, also expressed opposition to the bill proposed by Anna Hazare as well as to the government's version of the bill. The confederation opposed Hazare's proposed bill saying that it will be above the constitution and that proposers of the bill have support from elements who oppose reservation.

Logjam of Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill 2011

On December 27 2011, Lok Sabha Parliament winter session passed controversial Lokpal Bill under title of Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill 2011, but without constitutional status. Before passing this bill it was introduced in Lok Sabha with key amendments moved. The 10 hour house debate, number of opposition parties claimed introduced bill is weak and wanted it withdrawn. Key amendments that were discussed but defeated were following:

Including corporates, media and NGOs receiving donations
Bringing CBI under the purview of Lokpal

Amendments that the house agreed upon were:

Keeping the defence forces and coast guard personnel out of the purview of the anti-graft ombudsman
Increasing the exemption time of former MPs from five to seven years

Team Anna rejected the proposed bill describing it as "anti-people and dangerous" even before the Lok Sabha gave its assent. The key notes Team Anna made about rejection were:

Government will have all the control over Lokpal as it will have powers to appoint and remove members at its will.
Only 10 per cent political leaders are covered by this Bill
Bill was also covering temples, mosques and churches
Bill was offering favor to corruption accused by offering them free lawyer service.
Bill was also unclear about handling corruption within Lokpal office.
Only five per cent of employees are in its ambit, as Class C & D officers were not included.

Team Anna was also disappointed over following inherent exclusions within tabled government bill.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) should be merged with the Lokpal, and the anti-corruption bureaus and the Vigilance Departments of the State governments with the Lokayuktas.
The Lokpal and the Lokayuktas should have their own investigative wings with exclusive jurisdiction over cases filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The Lokpal should have administrative and financial control over the CBI, and the appointment of the CBI Director should be independent of any political control.
The jurisdiction of the Lokpal and the Lokayukta should cover Class C and D officers directly.

This bill was then presented in Rajya Sabha where it hit log jam again.

Support for the Bill

Surveys

India Against Corruption conducted a survey on the draft Lokpal Bill presented by the Indian Government in Parliament. It showed that 85% of the participants were opposed to the government's bill. The team especially cited the results from the Chandni Chowk constituency, the constituency of Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, who is a vehement voice for the government's version of the bill.

According to a nationwide survey conducted by CNN-IBN & CNBC-TV18 and published in early August, only a shade over a third of respondents have heard of Lokpal. 34% of all respondents said they have heard of the ombudsman and only 24% knew what it actually meant

Prashant Bhushan, one of Anna Hazare's associates and a drafter of the Jan Lokpal Bill, has demanded a nation-wide referendum on the Jan Lokpal Bill to gauge the mood of the nation.

Legislator support

Post the massive support to Anna Hazare's movement, several MPs across party lines have come out in support to the Jan Lokpal Bill. Most notable are Congress MPs from Maharashtra, Priya Dutt and Datta Meghe.Datta Meghe also demanded that his party spokesperson Manish Tiwari should apologise to Anna Hazare for his uncharitable comments.

This support started coming as over 150 MPs and Ministers from different states were forced to remain confined to their houses as Anna supporters protested outside their houses. Protests were also seen outside the residence of Sheila Dixit CM of Delhi, Kapil Sibal, Pranab Mukherjee amongst others.

BJP MP Varun Gandhi is introducing Jan Lokpal Bill as a private member's bill in the parliament.

Social media

As per reports, Anna Hazare's fast was successful in mobilising the support of thousands in the virtual world of social media. On Independence Day, Anna had over 500,000 mentions through status updates and comments across top social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter in the country. Two days later, the number had shot up to 9 million.On YouTube, over 40,000 people watched the video shot by Kiran Bedi inside Tihar Jail in which Anna has addressed his supporters. Facebook has 542 fan pages by Anna's name.

Online surveys

According to the survey conducted by STAR News and Nielsen, 87% of the 8900 respondents of the survey supported the Jan Lokpal Bill. The survey – conducted in 28 cities across the country, including all four metros – mainly dealt with three important points: public’s knowledge about the Lokpal Bill; awareness about Anna’s campaign; and the perceived problems with the Jan Lokpal Bill.
Over a million people joined the Times of India online anti-graft campaign, in one of the biggest ever voting exercises in the virtual world. The news analysis points that citizens want to make their voices heard and have found the platform offered by the campaign a viable one to do so.

Parliamentary actions on the proposed legislation

On 27 August 2011, a special and all exclusive session of Parliament was conducted and a resolution was unanimously passed after deliberations in both the houses of Indian Parliament by sense of the house.

The resolution, in principle, agreed on the following subjects and forwarded the Bill to a related standing committee for structure and finalise a report:

A citizen charter on the bill
An appropriate mechanism to subject lower bureaucracy to Lokpal
The establishment of Lokayuktas (ombudsmen at state level) in states

On being informed of this development, Anna Hazare, civil rights activists along with protestors at the site of the fast welcomed this development, terming it as a battle "half won" while ending the protest.