Modalities of Lokpal panel during first meet

 Moily, who is convener of the 10-member committee, told reporters that there was no formal agenda for the meeting.

The maiden meeting will begin at 11:30 am on Saturday at the North Block office of finance minister and panel chairman Pranab Mukherjee.

The panel consists of five ministers and five members of civil society.

Moily indicated that the committee was unlikely to look at demands from different quarters such as the one from Digvijay Singh that Lokpal should cover corporates and non-governmental organisations too.

Neither is now part of either the official or social groups’ proposals in the setting up of Lokpal.

Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh said on Tuesday the anti-corruption law in the US looked into the functioning of the corporate sector and the NGOs and a similar system should be considered in India too.

He also favoured the declaration of assets by the five civil society members on the panel. “It will be in the highest tradition of transparency if they declare their assets,” he said and pointed out that the five ministers on the panel had already done so.

Moily was non-committal on the remarks of another member of the pane—Union minister Salman Khurshid—who said that the government representatives would attend the April 16 meeting with an “open heart and mind.”