Difference between Joke Pal and Jan Lokpal

While watching TV news bulletin, the reporter asked a few of the people agitating whether they knew the difference between the Joke Pal Bill of the government and the Lokpal Bill of Anna.
The main point of difference seems to be in including the Prime Minister and the Judiciary under the Lokpal.
If we look at all the Prime Ministers India has had, People would give a clean chit only to G L Nanda, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Chowdhury Charan Singh, Inder Kumar Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.
All the others have had a stigma attached to their name which gave a perception that something was not right.
J L Nehru, although himself honest, may be considered as the father of corruption in India for he did not take action in the Jeep scandal of Krishna Menon. If he had taken action then, corruption would have been nipped in the bud.
Morarji Desai appeared honest but there was always a feeling that everything was not right.
There is no point is mentioning Indira Gandhi for except for freeing Bangladesh, her whole regime was steeped in corrupt action to hold on to power and harass her opponents.
V P Singh too was comparatively honest but to hold on to power, he initiated the OBC quota which further divided India and set it on fire.
Rajiv Gandhi was basically honest but because of his Italian wife whom he wanted to please, he became part of the Bofors scandal. That money never came back to India because of the dallying tactics followed by the congress government.
Chandrasekhar, "the young turk' was probably just behind Indira in corruption. Indira did not probably gain monetarily except maybe through Sanjay Gandhi but Chandrasekhar gained monetarily. I am given to understand there is in Ballia, the biggest petrol Pump in India, which Chandrasekhar allotted to himself.
Deve Gowda during his stint as PM seemed honest but his actions thereafter raises doubt regarding his credibility.
People have not been able to pin-point and take action against them for the CBI, the main investigation agency was under them.
The Judiciary has been a shining example when compared to our politicians. However, when we hear of the going ons of Justice V Ramaswami and Justice Balakrishnan of the Supreme Court and Justice Dinnakaran of Sikkim and Justice Soumitra Sen of the Kolkata High Court we feel that they too should be brought under the Lokpal
Justice Ramaswami failed impeachment because the southern MPs and the Congress ganged to prevent his impeachment.
Justice Sen is being impeached after 20 years of committing the crime, that too because of the pressure of Anna and his fight against corruption. Action is yet to be taken on Justice Dinnakaran and Justice Balakrishnan.
Judges are supposed to be scrupulously honest and even one dishonest judge gives a bad name to the whole tribe and cannot be tolerated.
So there is no harm in bringing both the PM and the Judiciary under the Lokpal.

I give below the other salient features with my comments why I support Anna.

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.

Comment: This is very very necessary for at present all investigation agencies are under the Central or State government whom the government controls.The salary, postings, promotions are all controlled by the government and so they start and stop investigations according to its whims.This has been going on since independence and these should be removed from the government.

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.

Comment: This is very necessary as corrupt people amass wealth in the names of all their family members so that the government cannot touch it.We have seen how the wealth of A. Raja, Maran's family and Karunanidhi's extended family of 3 wives, Mayawati, Suresh Kalamadi, Sharad Pawar and others have amassed wealth more than a few lakh times what they had when they started their lives. All this wealth should be confiscated retrospectively from these scamsters. If this is done, you will see the price of land and everything fall and inflation will come down.

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.

Comment: This is very necessary.
At every walk of life, we are forced to pay bribes. From personal while getting passports for my wife and daughter-in-law, I had to pay the policeman who did not even come to investigate to send a report.
I myself had to apply a second time as the policeman did not forward my papers.
My younger daughter-in-law has not yet got a new passport although she surrendered her old passport.

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.