Press Briefing Tuesday, 16th August 2011

Shri Abhishek Singhvi addressed the media today.

Shri Abhishek Singhvi said we want to raise and deal with some issues of principle.

1. No government has taken more steps than the Congress-led UPA in the last couple of years especially on the issue of corruption generally also but especially than this one and we are interested in dealing with this scourge effectively and with determination.

2. Such steps, to name only a few, include :

a) Over 50 new bilateral agreements or treaties regarding black money through creation of High Powered Committees to police black money and so on
b) Specific listing of areas for elimination of discretion in decision-making because discretion breeds nepotism. So, we are drastically reducing Ministry-wise those areas. As this goes back to the Congress President’s Burari declaration also.
c) Strong concrete action of penal nature including imprisonment against Union Ministers, senior bureaucrats and senior private executives.
d) Consistent pursuit of the Lokpal Bill in the immediate past over three months and bringing it to Parliament and to the Standing Committee.

3. No other political party least of all the NDA has done anything comparable even fractionally.

4. Elimination or reduction of corruption is a process, is a journey, it is not a point, it is not a destination. There is no magic wand, there is no instant solution.

5. We have engaged unprecedently with one part of civil society in a joint drafting of the Lokpal Bill to the extent possible. No earlier dispensation has done so.

6. A time must come to end differences. That time has is when the Bill is carried and becomes the parliamentary property or the Standing Committee property.

7. Anyone who respects the Parliament, anyone who respects the constitutional process and democratic process is welcome to put all views before the Standing Committee or parliament As far as the Standing Committee is concerned, they have already been received with great respect and heard with interest and they shall continue to be treated in the same manner so long as they have faith in the parliamentary process.

8. Not to have this faith or not to do this but to insist that only one version of the Bill is good for the country will, I submit, be a negation of the parliamentary process. It will be a rejection of the rule of law. It will be a nullification of the Indian constitution and it will be an insult to all political parties indeed and insult to Indian political process itself.

9. I want to ask all political parties today, through you, to consider and answer this question. Do these political parties, any of them, for temporary transient politically expedient objects would they like to answer my question :
i) Do these political parties support regular joint drafting of parliamentary legislation?
ii) Do these parties support indefinite fasts unto death after any Bill has become the parliamentary property?
iii) Do they support insistence by any slice of civil society that only one version is good for the country.
I don’t hear any answer from political parties and I expect to hear no answer.

10. Today though it may seem temporarily expedient or politically advantageous for you, we ask you to consider the repercussions of this on democracy and political process itself.

India is a proud democracy. It enshrines but also actualizes and practices free speech, right to assembly, right to demonstration. We do it in reality and we do it in full and ample measure. We need lessons from no one on this – any country or any individual. We have the finest list of fundamental rights but they also come with reasonable restrictions on each fundamental right. If Delhi Police in its wisdom has imposed certain reasonable restrictions, nobody is suggesting Delhi Police or civil society is infallible. If anybody is aggrieved by any lack of reasonableness in any restriction, what is the only method known? It is to go to the only dispute redressal mechanism namely the Courts. Now if you do not comply with the rules and the restrictions imposed on you and you also do not go to the court to stay it or to challenge it, then if you directly violate that rule it can only be legal defiance and it can only be visited with penal consequences which are also prescribed in the law itself. Nobody is infallible and we submit that we are not interested in anything else than the above principles which we are seeking to afford.

On the question of reaction of the Congress party on the prevalent situation on the crackdown of Police on Anna Hazare and whether does it not reminiscent of the emergency days, Shri Singhvi said it is entirely the result of temporary political expediency backed by a preposterous ignorance of history coupled with an even more humungous ignorance of our constitutional law and reality that such a comment is made. Nobody in this country can say that we have in any manner limited or even attenuated absolute and complete rights of free speech and assembly. Every fundamental right is subject to some reasonable restrictions and all that you are seeing is one authority entrusted with regulation imposing what that authority namely Delhi Police thinks are reasonable restrictions. You are not necessarily bound by it. If you disagree, you have only two courses left – one is to agree and obey them or if you disagree and challenge it in the court and get the same stayed. If you do not challenge and you disagree, you go and violate then the consequence must flow. Nobody is suggesting Delhi Police is infallible. Who decides the infallibility; it is only the judiciary and no one else?

To another question whether Anna Hazare’s ‘andolan’ can be compared with that of Jayaprakash Narain, Shri Singhvi said quick trigger happy comparisons can be dangerous and worse. They can be misleading. You have as fraction of civil society which has been given full and ample opportunity to be participative in a legislative process. Subsequent to that they ought to be fully participative in a legislative process which is on going before the Standing Committee where they have already been heard in great detail.

To another question as to why the Congress party did not challenge the decision of the UP government in the court with regard to Bhatta Parsaul, Shri Singhvi said we did not challenge the same in the court and for that very reason we did not go back to Bhatta Parsaul on our conditions.

To a further question as to whether there were any instructions from Home Ministry to Delhi Police; Shri Singhvi said there was a written order published by Delhi Police five days ago. They could have challenged it in the court of law which they did not.

Shri Singhvi futher added we are prepared to debate it with the entire civil society and added whether an indefinite fast possibly unto death is a valid form of protest after you have made a Bill part of which is jointly drafted into a parliamentary property and that nobody has given us a reply.

On another question whether the Congress party retracts the statement made in the special press briefing on Sunday taking into account Justice Sawant commission report, Shri Singhvi said our stand and principles are clear. They have been the same. No principle is changed. Ways of putting can vary. That is the individual use of words.

To a question on the reaction of the Congress party on RSS backing Anna Hazare, Shri Singhvi said as far as your larger question is concerned especially about the RSS, I think, it is for you to ask the civil society activists as to whether they are aware and sensitive to such a possibility. I am not at all sure that they would like to be clubbed with organizations that have had a questionable history in this country and certainly if more and more evidence comes out on this issue, it will be a big question mark on any movement.
    
 

(Tom Vadakkan)
Secretary, AICC