Parliamentary panel tables report on Lokpal Bill in Parliament

Mtoday news / PTI

New Delhi, Dec 9:  The parliamentary panel examining the Lokpal Bill has submitted its report to Parliament. The bill establishes a new ombudsman agency, the Lokpal, that will investigate corruption among government servants. Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare, who has pivoted a nationwide movement against graft, has threatened to go on a new hunger strike if the Bill does not grant significant power to the Lokpal.

 

 

The report on the Lokpal Bill was tabled in the Rajya Sabha by Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Law and Justice, Public Grievances and Personnel. In the Lok Sabha, committee member Pinaki Misra tabled the same report.

The government is not obliged to follow the committee’s recommendations, and in any case, the report has failed to establish consensus on major features even among the 30-member committee.  A total of 16 dissenting notes accompany the report, three of them from Congress MPs who disagree with the decision to exclude 57 lakh junior bureaucrats from the jurisdiction of the new Lokpal. Mr Singhvi stressed however that the dissent was nominal.  He said the committee addressed 24 issues and on 13 of these, "there was 100% unanimity."

Anna, 74, and his group of activists have said that unless the Lokpal is allowed to investigate junior bureaucrats, Indians will continue to encounter corruption in everyday life.  These are the officers who are involved in basic services - like sanctioning driver’s licenses, or processing passports.  

The committee’s report does not suggest whether the Prime Minister should be covered by the Lokpal -it asks parliament to decide.  Team Anna has said excluding the PM amounts to sanctioning immunity to his or her office.

Sources say the government will compromise by placing the PM’s office, though with safeguards, under the ambit of the Lokpal.  The lower bureaucracy will also be made accountable to the ombudsman.  So the remaining flash point with Anna’s team will be who the CBI reports to  - the activists want the investigating agency to be controlled by the Lokpal, which the government and the CBI have so far opposed. 

The parliamentary committee wants the Lokpal to handle the preliminary inquiry when a complaint is filed against a government servant - after that screening process, the investigation would be referred to the CBI.  The committee also asks the Lokpal to sign off on the CBI’s closure reports which are filed when the investigation is complete.  The investigating agency has objected to this, arguing that it goes against the principle of keeping the CBI autonomous.