Group C staff too can come under ombudsman; allies not for CBI within its ambit
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government crossed the first hurdle to passing the Lokpal Bill, when a “broad consensus” was achieved at a meeting of UPA leaders, a day ahead of the crucial all-party meeting.
Emerging from the meeting, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, describing the deliberations as “useful,” said there was a “broad consensus” on major issues.
While there was agreement that the office of Prime Minister should be included within the ambit of the Bill, with some conditions (excluding matters relating to external affairs, national security, etc.), and that Group C employees, too, should come within the purview of the proposed ombudsman, the allied parties, sources said, were opposed to bringing the Central Bureau of Investigation under the Lokpal, or including the Citizens' Charter.
At the meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Chidambaram and chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee that produced the report on the Lokpal Bill Abhishek Manu Singhvi briefed the members. All the leaders of the allied parties, too, expressed their views.
Those who attended the meeting at 7 Race Course Road included Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi, the DMK's T.R. Baalu, Union Minister and Nationalist Congress Party leader Praful Patel, Non-conventional Energy Minister and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and the new entrant and Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Ajit Singh.
3 anti-graft Bills passed
The meeting with the allies came close on the heels of the Cabinet clearing three major draft anti-graft Bills — the Citizen's Charter Bill, the Judicial Accountability Bill and the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosures Bill (whistle-blowers' Bill). The government pushed the three Bills through on Tuesday as an indication of its seriousness in tackling corruption, and to counter the joint attack mounted by the Opposition and Team Anna.
The Congress' Core Group, too, met earlier in the day to finalise its strategy on the Lokpal issue ahead of the meeting of UPA leaders on Tuesday, and with Opposition leaders on Wednesday. The Group discussed the Opposition-sponsored adjournment motion on black money that is likely to come up on Wednesday. Apart from Dr. Singh and Ms. Gandhi, Mr. Mukherjee, Mr. Chidambaram, Defence Minister A.K. Antony and the Congress president's political secretary Ahmed Patel were present.
Meanwhile, the CBI wrote to the government, expressing its unhappiness over issues related to the Lokpal Bill, saying many of its clauses would severely impair the functioning of the investigating agency. In its letter to the Department of Personnel and Training, the CBI said the move to make preliminary enquiry by the Lokpal mandatory before giving cases to the CBI would “severely impair” the effectiveness of the agency in anti-corruption cases. For, it would lose the “surprise element” to carry out search operations, sources said.
Comments:
what nonsensical statement! how come surprise element can not be kept when CBI comes under Lokpal?? just another illogical reasoning given by UPA through mouth of CBI??? everything done by UPA is eyewash. UPA is trying to create multitude of bills and confuse the country even more as Congress has been doing for many years in the past.
While it is indeed heartening to note that a broad consensus of the UPA leaders was achieved for bringing the PM and Group C staff also within the ambit of the Lokpal,one needs to examine all the clauses of the bill before expressing any jubilation.The CBI's apprehensions about many of the clauses seriously impairing its fuctioning and that the surprise element would be lost in carrying out the search operations,albeit appearing to be valid,don't hold water because even now the instructions to the CBI to conduct the investigations are issued so much later after the event that by then the suspects have ample opportunities to tamper with witnesses and also destroy all incriminating evidence and papers.Let us wait for the final draft before passing any opinions.
CBI functioning is also to be discussed in Parliament. CBI's action is not above law. Some CBI officials fail to bring the truth in most of the cases and their views are one sided only. Many CBI's cases fail in the court which shows that they are not fair minded.
I am rather amused to read about CBI's objection. Past event proved the charge that CBI has intitiated proceedings like raids on the houses of politicians who were opposed to Congress party. The raid on the houses of former Andhra CM,son, Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu are examples. It should be mandatory to get get the clearance of the LokPal before any proceedings are initiated by the CBI .
Bofors woud have been classified as a national security matter by the then government and if there was a Lokpal at that time it would not have been able to look into the then Prime Minister's alleged role in the scam. The defence department is perhaps the biggest spender of government money and therefore it will not be right to exclude security matters per se when the Lokpal looks into allegations if any against the Prime Minister.
It is good to see that some sanity dawned upon Congress lead UPA government after all their efforts to scuttle bringing up a strong Lokpal Bill proved ineffective and no takers. But the "tag" of corruption associated with Congress is now clearly etched in the minds of people. All politicians in general, and Congress politicians in particular, will have a lot to answer and a lot to loose after the Lokpal institution is formally set up under the constitution.
While there was agreement that the office of Prime Minister should be included within the ambit of the Bill, with some conditions (excluding matters relating to external affairs, national security, etc.), and that Group C employees, too, should come within the purview of the proposed ombudsman, the allied parties were opposed to bringing the Central Bureau of Investigation under the Lokpal, or including the Citizens' Charter is quite unfortunate. CBI is at present used to settle scores with the allies and run the coalition government. CBI should be made to function as an independent body. It should act on its own with full freedom. It should not be under the clutches of the government. If it functions freely then politicians will have some accountability.
This is the best newspaper which i have read yet. Always, straight news without any misleading information or biasing... keep going The Hindu..
We should not make "Lokpal" the supreme body in the country who is above the all but accountable to none.When corruption is in the roots no "Lokpal" can eradicate it,after all "Lokpal" is also a human.In place of this give sufficient powers to "Lokpal",make CBI more autonomous and selection of "Lokpal" should be by a committee.This is right way to have an ombudsman in our country.
We are aware and accepted that Legislature,executive,judiciary and the media are the 4 pillars of democracy.We wonder whether Anna and his team would be a 5 th one or only a part of any of the 4 pillars.All would agree that corruption should disappear or under close watch.But it should cover every one who is corrupt irrespective creed,caste,religion or position.there should be no debate as to who should be outside this gambit.As a matter of fact even the members in the Lokpal Institution should be covered.
With CBI & Mr.Sibal as puppets, Mr.Chidambaram and UPA government is trying to hide their crimes or poor decisions from coming to Justice. Every discussion done by UPA government is only creating a shield for themselves, without caring about the people. These business minded politicians in Congress want to stay in power to hide their unlawful acts. Everyone knows Mr.Chidambaram is one of the politicians having Black Money in SWISS BANK, which is the exact same reason why the case is hanging without any action. And he is still in post, which only means the higher ups are his puppets. What are people going to do?
As I previously envisaged, the Lokpal/Ombudsman Bill is moving in the direction of becoming not only a political football - depending on who wins the next election - by trying to emcompass all and sundry corruptions logged since 1947 independence. Unfortunately democracies are known for their inefficiencies, even in the most developed countries, because means and ends are being confused for political/ideological victory.
It is evident that the Govt.is using the CBI &CVC to raise objections for bringing them under the Lokpal.What they have done is only stage managed.If the CBI becomes independent of the Govt.the ruling party cannot use the CBI to harass the opponents and stall investigations against their favourites. CVC is a toothless tiger even now.It can only give recommendations for the politicians to decide what has to be done in each case.Normally CVC should be happy to be under the Lokpal with authority to take suitable action against erring officials.