First meeting of the Lokpal Bill committee held on Saturday

NEW DELHI: First meeting of the joint committee for drafting the anti-graft Lokpal Bill will be held on Saturday, government sources said.

The ten members committee comprises five ministers and five civil society representatives, will begin at 11.30 a.m., according to sources.

Chairman committee will be Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Law Minister Veerappa Moily, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal and Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed are the other ministerial members. Former law minister Shanti Bhushan, representing the civil society, is the co-chairman.

Also the social reformer Anna Hazare, who went on hunger strike to demand a stronger Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill for complete abolishment of corruption, is one of the five members from the civil society.

Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Right To Information activist Arvind Kejriwal and former Supreme Court judge N. Santosh Hegde are also on the committee.

PM has said that the bill will be introduced in the monsoon session of parliament in July.
Everyone in the committee is expected to attend the first meeting of the committee.

Prashant Bhushan informed, “The first meeting is likely to be of an introductory nature.”