Declining to attend the meeting of the Lokpal selection committee on Tuesday as a “special invitee”, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to amend the Lokpal Act and officially include the leader of the single largest Opposition party in the Lower House on the panel.
“The government is well aware that there is no provision in the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act for a special invitee to be a member of the selection committee. An invitation as a special invitee without rights of participation, recording of opinion and voting in the procedure is only to mislead the nation and the people, rather than sincerely seeking the participation and opinion of the Opposition,” Mr. Kharge wrote.
‘Wasting time’
The Congress leader refused to attend the previous meeting of the Lokpal Selection Committee on March 1 citing the same grounds. Charging the Modi government with “wasting fours years’ by not amending the Lokpal Act, Mr. Kharge’s letter says, “The government’s double standards in this matter stand exposed by the fact that a similar amendment was made to the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 2014, where Leader of the single largest Opposition party was made a member of the selection committee governing the appointment of Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation.”
The Congress leader reminded the Prime Minister that despite a parliamentary standing committee approving amendments to the Lokayukta Act on including the leader of the single largest opposition party, the government has been sitting over it. “Yet till date your government has never bothered to list the same for debate or voting, it is clear that the current exercise is merely perfunctory gesture to assuage the letter of the Supreme Court’s directions,” his letter said.
Contempt petition
The Supreme Court currently is hearing a contempt petition after the Centre did not implement an April 2017 order to appoint a Lokpal. Ahead of the next hearing on April 17, the Centre is seeking to appoint a jurist in the selection committee.
