Demand of new lokpal bill
NEW DELHI: On Wednesday the civil society representatives led by activist Anna Hazare told a Parliamentary Standing Committee that it should reject the draft of the Lokpal Bill comprehensively and ask the government to draft a new lokpal bill.
The representatives led by Hazare, who has been campaigning for a ‘strong’ anti-graft legislation since April and is set to resume an indefinite hunger strike from August 16, were invited by the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice chaired by Congress’ Abhishek Manu Singhvi. The committee is mandated with fine-tuning the Lokpal Bill, 2011, introduced by the government at the beginning of the monsoon session.
Arvind Kejriwal, a key figure in the campaign said, “We told them it needs to be comprehensively rejected and the government should be told to make a different bill.”
The team made a presentation to the committee highlighting all the features they had wanted in the bill but are not part of the government draft.
Kejriwal said parliamentary rules allow only amendments to a certain extent to a bill that has been presented by the government. “Amendments to a bill presented by the government cannot change the scope of the bill, according to the rules.
He said, “We want Lokayuktas in the states to also be part of the same bill. This changes the scope of the bill and can be done only if a new bill is introduced,” adding that the team placed that demand before the committee.
