The Union Cabinet cleared the contentious Lokpal Bill at a crucial meeting on Tuesday night. The government will introduce this as a new bill on Thursday and withdraw the earlier Lokpal Bill. Earlier on Tuesday Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had cleared the draft Cabinet note.
Highly-placed government sources said there was a view within the Cabinet that since there were more than 60 amendments in the bill it would have created a lot of confusion among MPs as it would have required discussion on each and every clause. Thus, the government has decided to go in for a fresh bill.
Among the significant proposals cleared by the Cabinet is to keep the CBI completely out of the Lokpal’s purview. Importantly, the Cabinet also gave its consent to bring the PM under the Lokpal’s ambit but with a series of safeguards. All decisions related to national security, nuclear and space programmes, maintenance of public order, intelligence as well as internal and external security will be out of the ambit of the Lokpal.
All proceedings against the PM will have to be in-camera and the complaint should be endorsed by at least 100 MPs. If at all the PM has to be questioned it will be “strictly off-camera”.
Not only has the Central Bureau of Investigation’s autonomy been retained, there was no proposal to even dilute any of its powers by bringing either the prosecution or investigation units of the CBI under the Lokpal. Further, for all administrative purposes the CBI will continue to function under the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), as it does at present.
Instead, the Lokpal will have its own inquiry and prosecution wings. This means that the Lokpal will not have any police powers to investigate and will be a quasi-judicial body. Importantly, it will have the power to monitor all corruption cases referred by it to the CBI and, following the completion of investigations, its prosecution wing will put them up for trial. The Lokpal will be free to set up its own courts.
The Lokpal will not have powers to initiate a suo moto probe and can only conduct an inquiry, and subsequently order a CBI investigation, on complaints received from the public against government officials.
Even though it has been decided to make the Lokpal accountable to Parliament, as a safeguard the Lokpal can be impeached only after 100 members of Parliament give a complaint to the President. This provides an ample safety net and protection to the Lokpal to function in an independent manner. To ensure transparency, a committee comprising Prime the Minister, Lok Sabha Speaker, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and the Chief Justice of India or one his nominees, which has be a sitting Supreme Court judge, will select the Lokpal.