Lokpal Bill to be sent to standing panel

The contentious order asking family of govt officers to disclose their wealth would also now be reviewed

The Lokpal (Amendment) Bill is likely to be sent back to the Parliamentary Standing Committee for review and the deadline for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to submit their details under the law has been put on suspension.

This was decided at a meeting between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and a group of members of Parliament (MPs) who called on him.

As a consequence, the contentious order asking family of government officers to disclose their wealth would also now be reviewed. The deadline for submission of information under this order has been repeatedly postponed for the past two years.

The government had put out a notification on June 20, 2016 asking board members and officers of NGOs (including those established by the central government), those which receive central government grants exceeding Rs 1 crore annually and those receiving donations of over Rs 10 lakh annually from foreign sources, to declare their assets by July 31.

The order had stirred protest not just from the independent NGOs but also business leaders who also run not-for-profit trusts or operate their own NGOs either as private enterprise or under their corporate social responsibility programmes.

The MPs met Jaitley as a follow up of their meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday on the same issue. The PM had assured them of redress and requested them to meet the finance minister with the assurance that the deadline for the order regarding NGOs would be extended.

D Raja was one of MPs who, along with Sharad Pawar, Anu Aga and others had met the PM.  According to another source present in the meeting, Jaitley said the government had taken the decision in light of a large number of people being adversely affected by this provision of the Lokpal Act.

He assured the MPs that until a solution was found, the relevant provision asking NGO directors to divulge the details of their assets would be held in abeyance.

According to the source, Jaitley also said the spouses and dependent children of government servants were also proposed to be excluded from the applicability of this provision.