Ensuring effectiveness of Lokpal

Institutions like CBI become a let-down when the investigating official is (a) corrupt or/and (b) politically or extraneously influenced or/and (c) indolent. It is too well known that CBI is politically influenced. These three vitiating factors can be avoided in Lokpal if and only if he/she is chosen with due care by an appropriate authority. If the selection is made unanimously by a committee consisting of the Chief Justice, Prime Minister and Leader of the opposition as should be done in the case of CVC, the Lokpal is unlikely to suffer from any of the triple infimities mentioned above. Unanimity in selection is essential in view of what unfolded in the case of P J Thomas. (It is interesting to note that the Supreme Court bypassed the question as to whether unanimity is a legal requirement in the PJT case.)What happens if the committee members are corrupt? That is a second order question which should await its day for solution. It is however

helpful to remember that the incorruptible Justice Kapadia is a black swan and that we have more, substantially more, Balakrishnans than Kapadias. Recently Karan Thapar interviewed Salman Kurshid. The latter came up with an astonishing revelation that the government (at that point of time) was averse to insisting on Lok Ayukthas for all states because it was difficult to identify so many honest people ! When Karan sarcastically questioned if it was really that difficult in a nation of a billion plus population, Salman cynically put him down saying it was perhaps difficult even to find enough honest members for the Lokpal itself.