The Cabinet has cleared the anti corruption Lokpal Bill, and has decided that Prime Minister will be exempted within the ambit of the bill and any investigation for corruption against the Prime Minister will be exempted while he or she is in office. With this the conflict between Anna Hazare and Government has peaked.
The Cabinet has reached into such a decision based on the recommendations of the five ministers who were part of the drafting committee of the bill. The other half of the committee- Anna Hazare and his four activists- has delivered a separate bill, which has been completely abandoned by the government. Kiran Bedi said that this is not a Lokpal Bill, it's a Betrayal Bill. Mr. Hazare says in protest, he will start a hunger strike against this on August 16.
At the two-hour longing Cabinet meeting this morning, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that he had no objection in covering his office under the bill. But the cabinet decided otherwise. They decided that any complaint against the Prime Minister will now be examined only after the PM's term is completed. Ravi Shankar Prasad the spokesperson for BJP expressed his discontent over the complete omission of PM from the ambit of the Lokpal Bill.
The Lokpal Bill will now be introduced in the monsoon session of the Parliament which will begin from Monday.
The Lokpal Bill is intended to check corruption of politicians and bureaucrats. After a long hunger strike by Anna Hazare and his team in April which was supported by lakhs of Indians, the government agreed the committee assigned to prepare the Bill would include five ministers and five non-elected representatives including Mr. Hazare. The experiment failed miserably with both sides unable to find common ground on issues like who should select the members of Lokpal and the most critical point of difference was regarding the inclusion of Prime Minister within the ambit of the Lokpal Bill.
The Lokpal will have a Chairperson and eight members, of which 50% of them will be from the judiciary as will the Chairperson, who has to be serving or a retired Chief Justice of Supreme Court. The non-judiciary members have to be persons of impeccable integrity and outstanding ability.
Ministers today urged Mr. Hazare to not to challenge the government's draft in Parliament. Law Minister Salman Khursheed said "Anyone who challenges this procedure is challenging the Parliament of the country".
Reported by
AR
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