‘By Aug 16,Anna will have to deal with Parliament,not us’

“Because the Lokpal Bill would be a property of the Parliament at that time. If Anna Hazare says he is going on fast again (from August 16),he will not be saying it to the government then. He will be saying that to Indian Parliament. And if the Parliament feels that Anna Hazare should get what he is asking,Parliament will do it. No problem,” Khursheed said at Idea Exchange,an interaction with journalists at The Indian Express.

“What we are saying to them is that we are only doing what we feel convinced about and what we think will carry conviction with the Parliament. If you can convince Parliament to do more,please do it. We are not stopping you,” he said.

Khursheed said the current draft of the Bill was “vastly superior” to the one that the government had originally drafted last year and that this would not have been possible without engaging with the civil society representatives.

“If you look at our Bill,the Bill that we had drafted,and look at this Bill,this is a far better,superior Bill. Let us give credit (to the civil society) that this draft has come out of a collaborative effort between them and us. Our Bill would not have been as good as this,” he said.

He said while the government was not in agreement with several of the demands of the civil society,like bringing the Prime Minister or the higher judiciary within the ambit of the proposed office of Lokpal,it had accepted a number of other suggestions.

“We have agreed that the Lokpal would not need sanction from higher authorities to investigate an official. We have agreed that there will be an investigating branch,reporting only to the Lokpal. We have agreed that the funding for the Lokpal would be independent of the Finance Ministry and budget. It would be charged to the Consolidated Fund of India. We have agreed to make the appointment of Lokpal a more broadbased and robust process. These are much,much better provisions that what they were in the 2010 draft Bill and we are happy that they are better than the 2010 version,” he said.

Khursheed justified the government’s position on not empowering the Lokpal to investigate the the Prime Minister or the higher judiciary.

“Why should judiciary not be there? For this simple reason that the judiciary is involved in appointment of Lokpal. It is involved in questioning any order (of the Lokpal) that people are dissatisfied with. Judiciary is also involved in prosecuting a person sent for prosecution by the Lokpal. Lokpal looks at judiciary’s wrongdoing. Judiciary looks after Lokpal’s wrongdoing. Will that be a good system? When you send a prosecution to judiciary,will they feel that if we do not agree to this prosecution,we will get prosecuted ourselves? Is that a good thing? I don’t think this is a good thing,” he said.

Khursheed said some of the civil society representatives,especially Shanti Bhushan,were under the misplaced impression that they were in the joint committee to rewrite the Indian Constitution.

“Shanti Bhushan is a sort of…like being in the Constituent Assembly…He is sitting there with this utopian idea of what kind of Constitution we are going to write for this country… in a sense that all the minor things can be given to the elected government to do,but the major things,we in the civil society will be doing. On the first day,when it was pointed out some of the demands raised by them were not in accordance with the Constitution,Shanti Bhushan said,‘I think,you haven’t got it yet. We are here writing the Constitution afresh’. (Law Minister M Veerappa) Moily then pointed out that the committee did not have the mandate to change the Constitution,” he said.

Khursheed also revealed that before the composition of the joint committee was decided,the civil society representatives had named one particular minister that they wanted in the panel. “Kapil Sibal told them that he will convey their wish to the Prime Minister but they cannot dictate which minister the government must select. And he told them that the government would also not say which people the civil society should nominate to the panel,” he said.

WHAT GOVT AGREED ON

*Giving Lokpal its own investigative wing

*Independent financing and budget

*No sanction required for action against anyone

*Selection for Lokpal broadbased

GOVT RELUCTANT TO

*Bring PM under Lokpal

*Include higher judiciary

*Give police powers (raid,tap phones) to Lokpal