Grievance Redressal Mechanism

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ORIGIN AND CURRENT STATUS OF OMBUDSMANThe Institution of Ombudsman is of Scandinavian origin. The Ombudsman enquires into grievancesor complaints against the functioning of a public authority. In our own country, the system ofOmbudsman has been introduced in the Banking sector, Insurance sector and in the Income-taxDepartment. A brief background as to the origin of institution of Ombudsman will be necessary atthis stage:Judiciary, Internal administrative checks by the Executive and the Legislators, has failed to exerciseadequate and effective control over the administration.In this scenario, the quest for an effective control-mechanism over the administration has led to thecreation of the Institution of Ombudsman in the Scandinavian countries. Sweden was the first countryto adopt this institution as early as in 1809. Finland adopted it in 1919; Denmark in 1953 and Norwayin 1963. New Zealand, Australia and U.K. have also established the Ombudsman system both at thecentre as well as at the States.The institutions have been adopted in all these countries with the basic idea to control effectively theactivities of, and prevent abuses by, public officials after it came to be realized that the existingprocedures and mechanism for the purpose were hardly adequate and efficacious. The British Ombudsman has interpreted the term ‘maladministration’’ in a broad sense as including“bias, neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, ineptitude, perversity, turpitude, arbitrariness, andso on.” To these have also been added decisions “thoroughly bad in quality” or “clearly wrong”.On the whole, Ombudsman seeks to hold the balance between the citizen and the state and thuscontributes to the greater efficiency and humanity of the administrative process.The Ombudsman helps in removing the crisis of confidence between the administration and thepublic which otherwise could be the negation of good administration.
Ombudsman in Indian ConditionProcedures to redress individual complaints through the Courts or the Legislators or theadministration are as inadequate as any other common law countries. There is a peculiar elementpresent in the Indian situation which is not so much manifest elsewhere, viz. widespread publicsuspicion of administrative corruption which has very much undermined public confidence in theadministration and has very much corroded its moral authority and image.The Administrative Reforms Commission advocated the adoption of Ombudsman type ofInstitution in India.According to ARC, the redressal of citizens grievances is basic to thefunctioning of democratic governments, and will strengthen the hands of the government inadministering the laws of the land, its policies “without fear or favour, affection or ill-will,andenable it to go up in public faith and confidence without which progress would not be possible.With this objective, the ARC propounded a scheme for setting up an Ombudsman systemin India.However, due to various administrative and political reasons, the Ombudsmansystem as recommended by the ARC could not be created by the Government.In any case, there is a great need to supplement the existing mechanism to superviseadministration in India, and the experiment of the Ombudsman is worth a trial. It is hoped toresult in the improvement of administrative procedures affecting the individuals dealing withthe administration.
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Grievance Redressal Mechanism

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