Lokpal unworkable, will only pile up problems: Katju

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Press Council Chairman Justice Markandey Katju on Tuesday came down heavily on the concept of Lokpal, calling it an 'unworkable proposition'.

Speaking to reporters after the end of his two-day visit here, Justice Katju said that he found the Lokpal concept not workable in the existing situation and said that with the all-round graft in the country, setting up of Lokpal would only compound problems.

"There is no way that hundreds of thousands of complaints of corruption can be handled single-handedly by one Lokpal, you will require thousands of Lokpals for this work," he said, adding that he had preferred to be mum on the issue so far as he did not want himself to be seen as siding with corruption.

Questioning the Lokpal, he asked what was the guarantee that the Lokpal would not become corrupt and added in fact that they could end up blackmailing.

Likening creation of a Lokpal to setting up of a parallel bureaucracy, Justice Katju said in such situations the government would find itself at crossroads as far as functioning was concerned.

But while he slammed the concept of Lokpal, Justice Katju praised Gandhian and anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare and said that to him Hazare was an honest man but added that Hazare lacked scientific approach to the whole issue of graft.

Katju faced some embarrassing moments as scribes in the state capital engaged in a verbal duel with each other and accused the state's information department of being 'prejudiced' and 'indifferent towards their problems'.

An exasperated Katju tried his best to calm down the journalists but to little success.