Lokpal Bill: Hazare begins fast today

Maneesh Chhibber: Indian Express; Tue Apr 05 2011,

New Delhi : An appeal by the Centre notwithstanding, social activist Anna Hazare will begin an indefinite fast here from Tuesday in a bid to force the Centre to accept in toto the Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by a committee comprising, among others, Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde (retd), Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan and RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal.

On Monday evening, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a press release, noting with “deep disappointment” that Hazare was still planning to go ahead despite the PM’s offer to get a sub-committee of the Group of Ministers to interact and discuss the draft with the civil society activists.

Hazare and his colleagues had met the PM, the Law Minister and other senior officials on March 7, 2011.

According to sources, unless the UPA government, weakened by a string of corruption cases, decides to bend over backwards to please the “activist lobby”, there is little chance of it completely junking the draft Bill finalised by the Law Ministry and the Ministry of Personnel in favour of the Bill drafted by the activists.

The sources said the biggest bone of contention is whether the decisions of the Lokpal should be recommendatory or binding.

While the Jan Lokpal Bill wants all decisions of the Lokpal at the Centre and the Lokayuktas at the state-level to be binding, the prevailing feeling in the Centre is that this issue needs to be discussed further.

The Bill drafted by the activists seeks a separate clause in the Lokpal Bill for whistleblower protection. To this, the government points out that it has already decided to go for a legislation aimed at protecting witnessess.

Another major issue is the demand of the activists that the CVC, all departmental vigilance committees and the CBI’s anti-corruption wing should be merged with the proposed Lokpal. They also demand that the Lokpal should have the power to independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician without waiting for approval.

This, rebuts the government, is too far-fetched as neither the higher judiciary nor politicians elected to Parliament or state Assemblies would agree to this clause.