The Parliamentary Standing Committee examining the Lokpal Bill was learnt to be seized with the issue of including corporate sector and NGOs within the purview of the proposed anti-corruption ombudsman. Those on the committee maintained that the issue was being discussed with experts and a final call will be taken later. There are lakhs of NGOs and companies. It would be impossible for the Lokpal to deal with all of them. What we are looking at is the possibility of including those NGOs,which get government funding and also those corporates,which may have significant contractual relationship with the government,within the Lokpals ambit, a member of the committee told The Indian Express. These issues came up for discussion of the Standing Committee on Personnel,Public Grievances,Law & Justice,chaired by Abhishek Manu Singhvi,on Friday and Saturday. The committee spent around 10 hours stretched over two days discussing the various aspects of the Lokpal Bill with eminent personalities from different fields including Aruna Roy,Harish Salve,Pratap Bhanu Mehta,Udit Raj,Ashok Parija,among others. The CVC and the CBI Directors are set to make presentation before the committee next Saturday. The committee sources said that Anna Hazare and his associates would be called for the second round of discussion. In their presentation to the committee last time,Team Anna had opposed the inclusion of NGOs,drawing sharp comments from committee members. Most of those who made presentation before the committee on Friday and Saturday were said to have opposed the inclusion of the Prime Minister under the Lokpals ambit,while some suggested that if it had to be done,there should be enough safeguards. There was similarly opposition to the inclusion of the judiciary under the Lokpals ambit. Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan were said to have harped on the issue of reservation for SCs/STs and minorities in the Selection Committee or Search Committee for the appointment of Lokpal. Jayprakash Narayan of the Lok Satta was learnt to have countered their demand pointing out that since such members were likely to be ex-officio,it would be difficult to implement reservation in such panels. Singhvi refused to comment on the deliberations at committees meetings,though he did seem to have an issue with the way work got hampered due to delay in the reconstitution of the panel. The system of automatic lapse of all 24 committees in August each year may have to be relooked at. The process of each party nominating its members in each committee takes a lot of time and sometimes urgency is affected, he said.
