By IANS,
New Delhi : The joint committee for drafting the anti-graft Lokpal Bill will hold its first meeting here Saturday, government sources said.
The meeting of the 10-member committee, comprising five ministers and five civil society representatives, will begin at 11.30 a.m., sources added.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is the chairman of the committee while social reformer Anna Hazare, who went on a 97-hour fast here to demand a stronger Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill to tackle corruption, is one of the five members from the civil society.
Law Minister Veerappa Moily, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal and Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed are the other ministerial members.
Former law minister Shanti Bhushan, representing the civil society, is the co-chairman.
Besides Hazare and Shanti Bhushan, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Right To Information activist Arvind Kejriwal and former Supreme Court judge N. Santosh Hegde are also on the committee.
All members of the committee are likely to attend the meeting, sources said.
“The first meeting is likely to be of an introductory nature,” Prashant Bhushan told IANS here.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the bill will be introduced in the monsoon session of parliament in July.