Need to include Group C,D; they exploit poorest: Kejriwal

“Are we leaving a huge vacuum? Are we leaving this set of people under the control of nobody? Almost Rs 30,000 crore of ration is siphoned off every year. This is primarily done by Group C and D officials. NREGA corruption is done primarily by Group C and D officers. All panchayat corruption is done by them. So where does one complain?

Which agency? This is a huge question mark. We cannot leave this vacuum,” Kejriwal said.

Team Anna has been demanding that the proposed Lokpal should be given jurisdiction over all government staff. The Lokpal Bill,as introduced in Parliament,had put only Group A staff under its purview. The standing committee is reported to have agreed to bring Group B employees within its purview as well,but not the lower level staff.

Kejriwal — while specifying that he was responding only to media reports of the standing committee deliberations,assuming them to be true — also raised objections to some other decisions,including the refusal to bring the anti-corruption wing of the CBI under the Lokpal.

“The committee is only reported to have decided that the Lokpal would have supervisory powers over CBI. I really don’t know what that means. Today,even CVC has supervisory powers over CBI but that amounts to nothing. The real control over CBI is exercised not by the CVC but the government,because the administrative and financial control over CBI rests with the DoPT. So if that system were to continue,it would amount to nothing. The Lokpal would be reduced to nothing more than a post office for the CBI,” he said.

He also criticised the committee’s reported decision on the selection process for Lokpal members. “While the number of government controlled nominees on the selection committee has been reduced,there are problems with the search committee that we had suggested. Experience shows that people in the selection committee are very eminent — Prime Minister,Leader of Opposition — and they often don’t have much time to devote to such exercises. That is where the search committee is very useful. It would consist of prescribed retired functionaries. While we had suggested a detailed procedure for deciding the composition of the search committee,the standing committee has apparently decided to leave the search committee to be decided by the selection committee,” he said.

Kejriwal also found faults with the proposed Judicial Accountability Bill,saying it does not talk of offences under the Prevention of Act,leaving the judges of High Court and Supreme Court completely immune from anti-corruption proceedings.