By IANS,
New Delhi, June 16 (IANS) Water Resources Minister Salman Khursheed Thursday said the kind of system proposed by civil society members in their anti-graft Janlokpal bill exists nowhere in the world.
“I have recently been to a Commonwealth conference and nowhere in the world does the ombudsman, or the parliamentary commissioner, or the equivalent of what we will have in Lokpal has the kind of power and structure that we are willingly wanting to provide for them in this country,” Khurshid said.
Addressing reporters with Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, Khursheed said: “People were surprised and they even queried whether this would amount to creating a completely new structure beyond government.”
“Our willingness to go well beyond what is being seen the world over as a transparent system for having checks on how government functionaries function and have an autonomous independent check is something on which the world will applaud for what we have done,” the minister added.
He also made it clear that the steps had not been taken under any pressure but because the circumstances demanded them.