Although crusaders
like Anna Hazare working on the sentiments of the Indian population are calling
for a strong lokpal Bill, the fact is that anyone who calls for a strong
institution like Lokpal has not read the provisions of the Indian Constitution.
The three provisions that act as a anti corruption measures are
1.
The Right to Information Act 2005
2.
Article 32 of the Indian Constitution
3.
Article 226 of the Indian Constitution
The Right to Information Act 2005 http://www.righttoinformation.gov.in/rti-act.pdf empowers
the citizens of India to seek information on the government offices(Public
Authority) processes, procedures and decisions in a timely manner.
It is pertinent to point out that it is a special law with overriding effect on
general laws. Under Section 2(h) of
the Act ‘public authority’ means any body or institution or authority
constituted or established
(a) by or under the
Constitution of India
(b) by any law made
by the Parliament
(c) by any law made
by the State Legislature
(d) by any
notification issued by the appropriate government and includes
(1) body owned,
controlled or substantially financed
(2) NGOs established
,financed (directly or indirectly) by the Government
The Objective of the Act is
stated in the preamble of the act which is quoted below-
“An Act to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to
information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of
public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the
working of every public authority, the constitution of a Central Information
Commission and State Information Commissions and for matters connected
therewith or incidental thereto.
WHEREAS the Constitution of India has
established democratic Republic; AND
WHEREAS democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of
information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption
and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the
governed;
AND WHEREAS revelation of information in
actual practice is likely to conflict with other public interests including
efficient operations of the Governments, optimum use of limited fiscal
resources and the preservation of confidentiality of sensitive information;
AND WHEREAS it is necessary to harmonise
these conflicting interests while preserving the paramountcy of the democratic
ideal; ”
Article 32 of the constitution of
India is referred to as the ‘constitutional remedy’ for the enforcement of the
fundamental rights of the Indian citizens, guaranteed under Part-III of the Indian
Constitution. The provisions of the fundamental rights are meaningless unless
the citizens have adequate safeguards to ensure enforcement through writ in a
court of law, More so, a writ lies only against a person if it is a
statutory body or performs a public function or discharges a public or a
statutory duty, or a “State” within the meaning of Article 12 of the
Constitution. (Vide Anandi Mukta Sadguru Trust Vs. V.R.
Rudani AIR 1989 SC 1607; VST Industries Ltd. Vs. VST Industries Workers’ Union
& Anr. (2001) 1 SCC 298; and State of Assam Vs. Barak Upatyaka U.D.
Karamchari Sanstha AIR 2009 SC 2249). This article 32 of
the Indian constitution is included in the fundamental right and therefore
cannot be denied to any person. This article has been called as the heart and
the soul of the Indian Constitution.
A Public
Interest Litigation can be filed before the Supreme Court under Article 32 of
the Constitution or before the High Court of a State under Article 226 of the
Constitution under their respective Writ Jurisdictions. There are mainly five
types of Writs –
(i) Writ
of Habeaus Corpus,
(ii)
Writ of Mandamus,
(iii) Writ
of Quo-Warranto,
(iv) Writ
of Prohibition, and
(v) Writ
of Certiorari.
(I) Writ
of Habeas Corpus:
Of these,
the most important is the writ of Mandamus which has been used as a effective
tool by the concerned citizens of India. Mandamus is a Latin word, which means
"We Command". Mandamus is an order from a superior court to a lower
court or tribunal or public authority to perform an act, which falls within its
duty. It is issued to secure the performance of public duties and to enforce
private rights withheld by the public authorities. Simply, it is a writ issued
to a public official to do a thing which is a part of his official duty, but,
which, he has failed to do, so far.
This does not argue that Judicial
process in India is free from defects, infact, the most important area that
needs focus for reducing Corruption in India is Judicial Reforms. It is strange
that in a country where there are more than one million lawyers and 80,000 law
graduates pass each year, there is a shortage of judicial officers and huge
backlog of court cases. “Over three million cases are pending in India's 21
high courts, and an astounding 26.3 million cases are pending in subordinate
courts across the country. At the same time, there are almost a quarter million
under-trials languishing in jails across the country. Of these, some 2,069 have
been in jail for more than five years, even as their guilt or innocence is yet
to be ascertained.”
This calls for urgent measures to increase judicial officers so that corruption
cases are brought to conclusion through fast track courts
