Lokpal act would have prevented PNB scam: Anna Hazare

Social activist Anna Hazare on Tuesday said that the scam at the Punjab National Bank (PNB) would not have occurred had the anti-corruption Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act been implemented in 2011.

"Lokpal and Lokayuktas can be very powerful, we made a draft but people in politics do not want it. If it was implemented in 2011, these scams would not have occurred," Hazare told ANI here.

"Governments don't understand, they only say they will make corruption-free India but do nothing about it," he added.

Recently, the PNB detected a scam to the tune of Rs 11,400 crore which involved billionaire jewellery merchants Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, among some bank officials that helped facilitate the scam.

Hazare had begun a mass movement in 2011 demanding implementation of governing bodies of Lokpal and Lokayuktas at the central and state-level respectively, in order to check corruption by all public servants including the Prime Minister.

Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act was finally passed in 2013, albeit the amendment on the Act passed in 2016 limited the ambit of the Act.