Lok Pal panel: Civil society shoots letter to PM

The debate over the brining the Prime Minister under the purview of the Lok Pal, gained momentum today with civil society members of the drafting committee shooting off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asking the PM to clarify the government’s stand on the issue.

In the letter, the Anna Hazare-led group has claimed that the government representatives, including Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Law Minister Veerappa Moily, had on three occasions concurred that the PM should be brought under the purview of the Lok Pal.

“Why should an honest prime minister like you be scared of being investigated by an independent Lok Pal,” the letter asks. The letter said: “In 2001, Pranab Mukherjee, as the chairperson of the Parliament Standing Committee on Lok Pal, had himself recommended that the PM should be covered under the ambit of Lok Pal.” The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had agreed to the suggestion, the letter further added.

“In January 2011, Law Minister Veerappa Moilly suggested inclusion of the PM in Lok Pal’s purview in the draft law prepared by him. This draft law was sent to the Home Ministry under Chidambaram which also concurred with this view,” the letter said.

“We are wondering what happened post March 2011, which prompted the government to suddenly take a u-turn on this issue. Till now the PM could be investigated by the CBI. Why an honest prime minister like you should be scared of being investigated by an independent Lok Pal.”

RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal, a member of the drafting committee of the Lok Pal Bill said: “An impression is being given that until now the Prime Minister was outside the ambit.

Every activity of the PM can be investigated under the Prevention of Corruption Act. We are only proposing that unlike the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is directly under him, he should be investigated by an independent agency like the Lok Pal.”

The civil society activists also criticised Pranab Mukherjee’s statement that the civil society members were undermining democracy. “Such statements betray a distorted understanding of democracy and an arrogance of power. It is this kind of arrogance of those who have got themselves elected through elections which are largely won on money power which is undermining democracy,” the activists said.

Attacking the government for not allowing proceedings of the drafting committee to be telecast live, Prashant Bhushan, senior lawyer and member of the drafting committee, said: “The government is saying that if the people watch the proceedings live various provisions of the Lok Pal Bill will convert the deliberations into a circus which will prevent members from expressing themselves candidly. Are they saying that Parliament has become a circus where members cannot express themselves candidly?”

In another development, Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh took back his words on the inclusion of the Prime Minister and the judiciary under the purview of the Lok Pal.