Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013

The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 (Act No. 1 of 2014) received Presidential assent on 1 January 2014 and came into force on 16 January 2014, fulfilling a demand traceable to the First Administrative Reforms Commission (1966) and the Santhanam Committee, and revived politically by the India Against Corruption movement led by Anna Hazare in 2011. The Act creates a statutory, multi-member anti-corruption ombudsman to inquire into allegations of corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 against a defined class of public functionaries. It also obliges every State to establish a Lokayukta by law within one year (Section 63), though it leaves the design of State Lokayuktas to State legislatures.

Structurally, the Lokpal is a body of a Chairperson and up to eight Members, of whom at least 50% must be judicial members and at least 50% must be drawn from among SC/ST/OBC, minorities and women (Section 3). The Chairperson must be a former Chief Justice of India, a former Supreme Court judge, or an eminent person of impeccable integrity. Members are appointed by the President on the recommendation of a Selection Committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the Chief Justice of India or a Judge nominated by him, and an eminent jurist (Section 4). Its jurisdiction extends to the Prime Minister (with safeguards excluding matters of international relations, security, public order, atomic energy and space, and requiring a two-thirds bench approval and in-camera proceedings under Section 14), Union Ministers, Members of Parliament (excluding conduct covered by Article 105 parliamentary privilege), and Group A, B, C and D officers. The Lokpal has its own Inquiry Wing and Prosecution Wing, and supervisory powers over the Central Bureau of Investigation for cases referred to it, including over transfer of officers investigating such cases.

The Act was amended by the Lokpal and Lokayuktas (Amendment) Act, 2016, which modified Section 44 on the declaration of assets by public servants and resolved the deadlock over the absence of a recognised Leader of the Opposition by allowing the leader of the single largest opposition party to sit on the Selection Committee. India appointed its first Lokpal Chairperson, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, in March 2019, more than five years after enactment. As of 2026 the institution functions but has faced criticism for a low volume of disposed complaints and for the uneven and delayed establishment of Lokayuktas across States, several of which had pre-existing Lokayukta statutes.

For the UPSC examination this Act is high-yield in GS Paper II (Governance — statutory and constitutional bodies) and overlaps with GS Paper IV (Ethics, GS4) under probity in governance and institutional mechanisms to fight corruption. Examiners frequently test the composition of the Selection Committee, the conditions under which the Prime Minister may be inquired into, the Lokpal's control over the CBI, the distinction between the Lokpal (statutory, not constitutional) and bodies like the CVC, and the reasons for the long delay in operationalisation. Prelims questions often probe specific section-level details such as the 50% judicial-member rule.