Differences prevail over four key issues of Lokpal bill

One of the main issues pr­oved to be the inclusion of the prime minister under the Lokpal.

The other differences were those relating to the inclusion of Group C employees, CBI within the ambit of the proposed Lokpal, and citizen’s charter. Several members, mostly on party-basis, gave a dissent note on the three issues.

Members were angry during the final meeting of the panel ov­er the reversal of the Cong­ress’ stand regarding the inclus­ion of Group C employees under Lokpal. The meeting on Wednesday had apparently taken the decision to include all categories of employees under the Lokpal, but on Thursd­ay the Congress MPs opposed the inclusion of the Group C category.

The BJP, CPM, BSP, SP demanded Group C category inclusion. They wondered why the Congress seemed to be backtracking. This went ag­a­inst the sense of Parliament given by Pranab Mukherjee in August. Pinaki Misra of the BJD st­ruck a different note saying th­at the inclusion of Group C in Lokpal might make it unma­n­ageable.
Committee Chairman Abhishek Manu Singhvi, however, sought to downplay the issue.

“There are differences. This rep­ort is not about the prime minister, or class A or class B. There are 25 important issues for which there has been convergence in the meeting.” He added: “the report to be tabled in Parliament will reflect the di­ssent notes of members who ha­ve divergent views on ‘some’ issues.”

As regards the prime minister, the BJP and Left members wanted its inclusion while the Congress members opposed it saying it can be included after the PM demits office.
Prasanta Kumar Majumdar of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, one of the committee members, told Deccan Herald, “Our stand was that the Constitution recognises every citizen equally. Hence the prime minister be included in Lokpal. I strongly oppose the change of heart of Congress MPs on Group C employees. With issues like this, we cannot have a strong Lokpal, which was the assurance that the House made in the last session.”
BJP’s D B Chandre Gowda said his party was for inclusion of all four categories in Lokpal.

“I was of the opinion that the entire bureaucracy should be treated as one in Lokpal and should not be broken. We have given dissent notes on all the three issues.” The members differed over the issue bringing CBI under the ambit of anti-corruption watchdog. The BJP was in favour of the inclusion but the Congress MPs were not. BJP MP Ram Jethmalani and Pinaki Mishra said that independent panel consisting of the Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition and Lokpal should appoint the CBI director.

There were differences rega­rding the citizen’s charter–the chart that denotes the duration taken for clearance of files in government offices as well.


The Samajwadi Party's main demand has been to make the citizen's charter a part of the Lokpal.