By IANS,
New Delhi : The civil society’s version of the Lokpal Bill will be the basis for a stringent anti-graft law, social activist and member of the bill’s joint drafting panel Arvind Kejriwal said.
“The Jan Lokpal Bill is going to be basis of discussion,” Kejriwal said in an interview to CNN-IBN’s Karan Thapar Sunday.
The government had last week acceded to the demands of veteran Gandhian Anna Hazare after thousands of people supported his five-day long fast-unto-death for a passage of a strong anti-corruption bill. A joint committee has been notified to draft the bill, whose civil society members include Hazare, Kejriwal, Justice Santosh Hedge, Prashant Bhushan and his father Shanti Bhustan.
Kejriwal defended the inclusion of his friends and associates in the committee, rather than getting other civil society members.
“We drafted the Jan Lokpal Bill. Therefore, these people can talk clause by clause with the government,” he said.
He denied that they were being narrow-minded to any other formulations outside the Jan Lokpal Bill.
A former Indian Revenue Service officer-turned-RTI activist, Kejriwal also denied that the activists’ version of the bill concentrated unprecedented powers into the office of the Lokpal.
“Now, Lokpal has broadly four functions – vigilance, criminal, public grievance and whistle blower protection,” he said, adding that the powers given to Lokpal is the same as that with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Income Tax authorities.
Kejriwal also defended widening the scope of the Lokpal to bring public grievance into its ambit. “Grievance had to be read with the citizen’s charter… Each department has to say that they are going to do this much work in this much time.”
He pointed out that bill was still a work in progress. “We had 12 changes so far, with the 13th one coming next week,” he said.
Kejriwal felt that the method adopted by Anna Hazare was the only way to make the government act on the bill.
“I am a citizen and I am feeling injustice. If I want to raise voice, I go and petition politicians, petition bureaucracy, nobody listens. What do they do?”
Referring to B.R. Ambedkar’s call for dropping the “grammar of anarchy”, Kejriwal said that while he had “great respect” for him, the situation in the country was very different.
“The situation that exists in India (today) is worse than British times,” he added.
He refused to accept that Hazare’s hunger strike opened the door for other groups to “blackmail” the government.
“If someone has a viewpoint, then he goes and fasts unto death. The rest of the society watches and sees if those views are correct or not,” said Kejriwal.
The social activist also denied that the movement undermined democracy and politics.
“I agree that those slogans (of all politicians being thieves) were hyberboles. Anna Hazare said that we will behave well with everybody. We have great respect for every individual. We tackle issues, not individuals,” he added.