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dfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzx LOKAYuKTA cvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq SUBJECT-POLITICAL SCIENCE wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuio pasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghj klzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbn mqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwerty uiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdf ghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxc vbnmqwertyuiopbadassdfghjklzxcvbn mrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuio passdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopassdfg
SUBMITTED BY PARVEER SINGH GHUMAN 3RD SEMESTER ROLL NO 144/10 SECTION B SUBMITTED TO Ms. MONICA ARORA
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 2
THE LOKAYUKTA .................................................................................................................... 5 FUNCTIONING STRUCTURE OF LOKAYUKTA .............................................................................. 6 SHORTCOMINGS ......................................................................................................................... 8 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT ............................................................................... 8
THE LOKPAL........................................................................................................................... 9 THE PRESENT LOKPAL BILL ......................................................................................................... 9 THE JAN LOKPAL BILL ................................................................................................................ 10 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JAN LOKPAL BILL AND DRAFT BILL 2010 ............................................. 11
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................... 13
ROLE OF MACHINERY IN REDRESSAL OF PUBLIC GRIEVANCES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO LOKPAL AND LOKAYuKTA
INTRODUCTION
A grievance can be defined as any sort of dissatisfaction, which needs to be redressed in order to bring about the smooth functioning of the individual in the organization. Broadly, a grievance can be defined as any discontent of dissatisfaction with any aspect of the organization. It can be real or imaginary, legitimate or ridiculous, rated or unvoiced, written or oral, it must however, find expression in some form of the other. In a democracy the citizens make the government and hold it accountable. Government is operated by bureaucracy for whom the rules and regulations are more important than helping the citizens. Also, it tends to keep things secret and department like electricity and water-supply, railways and telephones etc. exercise their own power. Citizens register many complaints against government machinery. The grievances of citizens against government machinery need to be heard and redressed otherwise, citizens will tend to withdraw their loyalty towards it. Hence, democracy sets up appropriate machineries for the redressal of citizens grievances.
Grievances (Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions) and Directorate of Public Grievances (Cabinet Secretariat) are established. Modern democratic states are characterized by welfare orientation. Hence the government has come to play an important role in the socio-economic development of the nation. This resulted in the expansion of bureaucracy and the multiplication of administrative processes, which in turn increased the administrative power and discretion enjoyed by the civil servants at different levels of the government. The abuse of this power and discretion by civil servants open up scope for harassment, malpractices, maladministration and corruption; this is to say that such a situation gives rise to citizen's grievances against administration. The success of democracy and the realisation of socio-economic development depends on the extent to which
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the citizen's grievances are redressed. Delay or harassment and unhelpful attitude of government departments and agencies create a bad image of government. At the same time, it has to be accepted that government has to undertake many functions in the interest of the public. The difficulties that the members of the public face in getting services make the people unhappy and dissatisfied. The poor people suffer most. They badly need government support and services, but they are the ones who are often harassed and turned down. This is obviously bad for the healthy democracy. The average citizen wants sympathetic, courteous and helpful public administration. If there are too many public grievances against the government agencies, corrective measures have to be taken to redress those grievances.
INDIAN
INSTRUMENTATION
FOR
PUBLIC
GRIEVANCE
In India, it has been observed by many committees and commissions that special machinery should be set up to deal with public complaints against the administration. Various institutions exist to redress public grievances. For instance, a citizen can move the court to seek remedy against any wrong done to him by a public servant or a public agency in the course of discharge of public duty: This is called judicial remedy. Many kinds of administrative tribunals have been set up to provide cheap and speedy justice to the complainant. The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Labour Tribunals etc. are instances of this type of institution. The government has also created Department of Adminstrative Reforms and Public Grievances. This is the nodal agency of the government for Administrative Reforms as well as redressal of public grievances. The enactment of Administrative Tribunal Act 1985 opened a new chapter in the sphere of
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administrating justice to the aggrieved government servant and in some cases public members.
THE LOKAYUKTA
Although no institution of Lokpal has yet been established at the Centre, there are states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Bihar, Orissa,
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Himachal Pradesh and national capital territory of Delhi which have appointed Lokayukta for dealing with the public grievances on the lines suggested by the ARC. Section 12 of the Himachal Pradesh Lokayukta Act, 1983, provides, If, after enquiry in respect of a complaint, the Lokayukta is satisfied that all or any of the allegations made in the complaint have or have been substantiated either wholly or partly, he shall, by report in writing, communicate his bindings and recommendations to the competent authority and intimate the complaint and the public servant concerned about his having made the report. The competent authority examines the report and has to communicate to the lokayukta within a period of three months of the receipt of such report, the action taken thereon.
The working of this system also shows that the Lokayukta organisation took up numerous and varied types of cases in which relief could be granted to the complainants. One such particular area is grievance regarding non- payment of pension and other retirement benefits to government employees. The intervention of the Lokayukta brought relief to very humble and low paid public servants like village school teachers, constables, peons, clerks etc. The Lokayukta provided relief to the complainants also in such grievance cases as changing a non-working electricity transformer, removal of maladministration in the working of the school and allotment of house to a flood victim. The mediatory role of Lokayukta between the complainant and the government servant /departments led to the settlement of the problem to the satisfaction of the complainant. In all such cases the Lokayukta organization was perhaps guided by the Ombudsman practice in different countries, whose main job is to redress the grievances of the people. It may be noted that the Lokayukta is only a recommending authority. Its recommendations have no legal sanctity, nor are these binding. The final judgement in respect of the offence lies with the competent government authority. Most of Lokayuktas and Up-Lokayuktas have recommended more or less similar types of punishment such as reduction in rank, retirement/removal from office, stoppage of annual increments and censure etc. The Governments in a majority of cases accepted these recommendations. In some cases, however the concerned persons took their case to the High Courts and Tribunals. Instances are not lacking also when the respective state governments on their part modified the recommendations of the Lokayukta and made the punishment less stringent.
SHORTCOMINGS
The Lokayukta organization has too many shortcomings such as no uniformity in the Acts of different states; recommendations of the Lokayuktas are not acceptable to the competent authorities; many areas of administration are outside the jurisdiction of Lokayukta; every state has fixed time limit for lodging a complaint; in some states like Maharashtra the identity of the defaulters is not disclosed; some states have prescribed fee for lodging complaints, for example M.P. is one of them. This hampers the work of Lokayuktas. Other problems are non-cooperative attitude of the authorities, lack of independent investigating authority, requirement of prior sanction of the government in some cases and indifferent attitude of the state governments.
autonomy is being raised. The need of co-ordination amongst agencies/institutions functioning in the area of redressal of public grievances is strongly recommended.
THE LOKPAL
The word Lokpal, means an ombudsman, has been derived from the Sweden, drawn up ostensibly to root out corruption at high places the prevailing in Indian polity. It provides for filing complaints of corruption against ministers and members of parliament with the ombudsman. It has been created to provide immunity to the corrupt at all levels that it claims to bring under its objective scrutiny. The Lokpal is a proposed body to be enacted as a law by Parliament, which will be headed by a chairperson who is or was a Chief Justice of India and eight other members. The Lokpal Bill, an effort to rein in the pervasive corruption in public life, was first mooted in the late 60s, However, it failed to become law despite successive attempts. The first lokpal bill was passed in the 4th Lok Sabha in 1969 but could not get through in Rajya Sabha, subsequently, Lokpal bills were introduced in 1971, 1977, 1985, 1989, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2005 and in 2008, yet they were never passed. The lokpal bill was visualised as the watchdog institution for ministerial probity. Broadly the provisions of different bills empowered the Lokpal to investigate corruption cases against political persons at the central level.
officials of Group 'A' and above rank without any sanction. According to the government's draft, the body will have a chairperson and eight members, including four judicial members - who will be former or sitting judges of Supreme Court or chief justices of the high court. The Lok Ayuktas in the states does not come under the purview of this bill as the Centre cannot intervene in the powers of the state. The Lokpal will have its own prosecution and investigation wing with officers and staff necessary to carry out its functions.
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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JAN LOKPAL BILL AND DRAFT BILL 2010 Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen's Ombudsman Bill)
have
no
power
to
initiate suo
initiate Suo motu action or motu action or receive complaints of corruption receive complaints of from the general public. It can only probe
corruption from the general complaints forwarded by the Speaker of the Lok public. Sabha or the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
Lokpal will have the power to Lokpal will only be an Advisory Body with a role initiate prosecution of anyone limited to forwarding reports to a "Competent found guilty. Lokpal will have Authority". police Lokpal will have no police powers and no ability to an FIR or proceed with criminal
powers as well as the ability to register register FIRs. Lokpal and the anti corruption
investigations.
wing of the CBI will be one The CBI and Lokpal will be unconnected. independent body. Punishments will be a
minimum of 10 years and a Punishment for corruption will be a minimum of 6 maximum of up to life months and a maximum of up to 7 years.
imprisonment.
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CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
Experience regarding the functioning of the Lokayukta institution at the level of states has not been similar. Whereas the Lokayuktas in states like M.P. and A.P. have achieved greater success in dealing with cases of corruption but this cannot be said about other states. In general the Lokayukta scheme has been regarded more as a failure in dealing with corruption cases. However, the organization has, over the years, successfully provided relief to a number of complainants concerning grievance cases arising out of maladministration. For the success of the organization it is required to tone up the state administration itself by making it more responsive accountable, transparent, efficient and effective. While assessing the role performance of the Lokayukta the influence of socio-political and cultural background of our society should not be ignored. Personal qualities such as the image, caliber, drive, persuasive power, and dynamism, perception of his role and institution of the individual Lokayukta also count in the success or failure of the office. In the final analysis, the attitude of those who appoint the Lokayukta and the agility and alertness of those for whom he is appointed also go a long way in determining the level of success or failure of the institution.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) Barbanas, A.P. (1969), Citizen grievances and Administration (A study in participation and alienatation), IIPA, New Delhi.
2) Chaturvedi, S.N. (1966), 'Machinery for redress of citizen's grievances', IJPA, Vol XII
3) Dhawan, R.K. (1981), Public grievances and the Lokpal : A study of the Administrative Machinery for Redress of Public Grievances, New Delhi.
4) Laxmikanth, M. (2002), Public Administration, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited, New Delhi.
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