Lok Satta Party hails Parliament nod to anti-graft Bill

Hailing the passage of the Lokpal Bill in Parliament, Lok Satta Party on Wednesday said it would be deemed a success only if corrupt high-level politicians and civil servants are sentenced to rigorous imprisonment and their properties confiscated regularly.

Even if a dozen corrupt high-level politicians and bureaucrats are sent to jail and their properties seized annually, it will send a strong message to the entire nation on the Government's commitment to fight corruption, Lok Satta President Jayaprakash Narayan said here.

He reiterated his party's contention that there is no alternative to creation of an independent, empowered Lokayukta at the State level because that is where corruption is omnipresent and hurts the common man most. Andhra Pradesh, for instance, has only a toothless Lokayukta.

The passage of the Lokpal should be regarded as only a beginning in the war against corruption, said Narayan, who is also an MLA in Andhra Pradesh. The war can become full-fledged only when a stringent law on the lines of the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators Act (SAFEMA) is in place providing for confiscation of the entire property of the corrupt, the former member of the Administrative Reforms Commission told reporters.

The Lokpal law must be supplemented with a legislation to guarantee Government services as a matter of right to every citizen with a provision of imposition of penalty for failure to deliver services, the bureaucrat-turned-politician said. A Bill drafted by Lok Satta in this regard at the instance of a House Committee is before Parliament, he said.

Narayan demanded that laws, rules and regulations should be ushered in to ensure that all scarce natural resources like telecom spectrum, iron ore and coal mines are allocated in a competitive and transparent manner. Narayan floated Lok Satta Party a few years ago to strive for clean politics.