Combating corruption through lokpal bill – An analysis

India has always been looked upon as one of the most corrupt country with corruption scandals taking place at regular intervals and that too of vast dimensions. Even after 71 years of independence things have not changed much and on world corruption index – known as Corruption Perception Index 2017 our country ranks at 81 position among 180 countries as per Berlin-based non-government organization Transparency International. The report singled out India as one of the “worst offenders” in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2016, India was in the 79th place among 176 countries. India‟s ranking in the index had plummeted in 2013 and 2014 in the wake of the spectrum and coal scams. This sole curse to the country is posing a great hurdle to India‟s economic growth story. There is no doubt that ever since independence in 1947 India has moved far ahead and have shown considerable progress in all spheres of economy be it development of infrastructure, industrial growth, agricultural production, growth of service sector, engineering, communication and allied sectors and ultimately to be recognized as nation to define the future economic growth story for world economy. But, high corruption level faced by the Indian economy is taking a big bite from of its development strategy and is spread from top to bottom and in all sectors be it public, private or joint sector. This corruption has been talked at all levels, in all years, at all forums, by all governments but the fact is that the country has failed to find a way out to arrest the corruption prevailing in the economy. Between 2002 to 2010 a number of scams were unearthed such as Telgi Scam, Coalgate Scam, 2G Spectrum Scam, Satyam Scam, Common Wealth Games Scam to mention a few which resulted into unrest among public at large but was helpless. At this time Sri Anna Hazare launched a massive movement in 2011 and sat on hunger strike demanding passing of Jan Lokpal Bill in the parliament and focusing on political corruption, kleptocracy, and other forms of corruption. The paper tries to analyze to what extent the Jan Lokpal Bill which was modified and passed by politicians as Lokpall Bill 2013 have been able to control corruption activities and cleaning of economy, what are the hurdles which come across in dealing with corruption. The paper relies on secondary source of information gathered from government and international websites, journals, research papers and newspapers.