The propriety of Lokpal Committee.

Should have had a sober discussion on issues of main disagreements

1. Why not bring the PM under LOKPAL. The answer lies in the "Oath of secrecy' Over and above the matters pertaining to all aspects of governance, PM involves and come to the knowledge of matters within the country and outside that cannot be made public in the interest of the country neither during his tenure or afterwards.

There can be mistakes, irregularities and inefficiency in the ministries under PM and  in the dealings of PM's office. For these there is built in recourse in the parliamentary system.

Any one can also take up any such issue with the Lokpal which it  take up with Speaker of Loksabha and seek explanations and for taking appropriate steps to rectify it by parliamentary procedures. 

If Lokpal is allowed to directly act on PM or PMO on every issue, the media and politicians will take it on and ask for PMs resignation etc. while the enquiry is happening without adequate scrutiny or reasoning.

2. Making Judiciary under the ambit of Lokpal.

a) Our Judicial system is already slow and non-people friendly and need great reforms. Bringing it under Lok pal will only mess it up further and make it unworkable.

b)Where people will go in appeal for errors of Lokpal system and the mis-deeds of persons employed under it.

3) Video broadcasting of Lokpal committee proceedings.

a) There is the danger of misquoting portions taken out of context and and using it unfairly against the members.

b) Many issues discussed could be of sensitive nature that should not made public for open discussion.

c) When an outside agency is involved for recording, it will be difficult to prevent its leaking out.

d) Edited and doctored audio and video in a way to misrepresent the facts and to make it sensational for the media circulated during  the procedure of the committee will defeat the cause.

However, these issues could have been discussed internally incamera and found amicable solutions instead of taking it in the media.

A committee is made of a group of people who can have different opinions on many issues that are not agreeable by others. The only way is to prepare the reports with dissents and difference in opinions and present it to the parliament. Representatives of the activists are acting like this committee is the end of of it and if someone make changes to it, they will boycott the whole thing and resort to agitations and fast.

It is surprising to see that even Mr. Santosh Hegde did not take it forward in a cohesive way. Few members on his side even adopted tactics of taking the issues to public and voicing threats while the committee is going on, and often in vocabulary that is not commensurate to the decorum of position they hold in such a high level committee.