Govt opposes PM, MPs in Lokpal Bill: Arvind Kejriwal

May 30, 2011 |

Agencies

New Delhi

Tags:

The government has opposed suggestion of civil society members to include the Prime Minister under Lokpal Bill, Arvind Kejriwal said today.

Government has also opposed bringing the conduct of MPs inside Parliament under the purview of Lokpal, he added.

The drafting committee for Lokpal Bill today had its fifth meeting today to thrash out differences that persist between social activist Anna Hazare's representatives and the government on several issues.

Earlier
Civil society members had wanted to lay stress on stricter punishment for high-ranking officials accused of corruption.

They also want to bring under the purview of the Lokpal, the conduct of Members of Parliament inside Parliament, if it is an offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

In an earlier meeting, there was a consensus on seven of the 34 points submitted by the civil society members.

There was an agreement on empowering the Lokpal to initiate a suo motu probe into allegations of corruption against ministers, parliamentarians and senior bureaucrats.

Currently, a minister can be prosecuted only after sanction from the Prime Minister. The Lok Sabha Speaker or the Rajya Sabha Chairman has to give the nod in case of action an against Member of Parliament.

Former union minister Shanti Bhushan, a member of Hazare's team and co-chair of the committee, in a letter to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had earlier suggested that the government first present its views on all remaining points and possible solutions on issues on which there were divergent views.

The latest version has a new clause, Clause 13-C, which gives wide powers to 'an appropriate bench of the Lokpal' to approve interception and monitoring of messages or data or voice transmitted through telephones, internet or any other medium as covered under the India Telegraph Act, read with the Information and Technology Act 2000.

Another new provision in this draft is for the setting up of a separate 'prosecution wing' for the office of Lokpal, which is already envisaged to have powers to investigate.

The draft was circulated to government representatives during the Committee's fist meeting on April 16.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/76714" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-7d276d4dcb7eec48a938ef8f2b711996" value="form-7d276d4dcb7eec48a938ef8f2b711996" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86789902" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>