By IANS,
New Delhi : Law Minister Salman Khurshid Wednesday said Team Anna’s version of the anti-graft Lokpal bill was structured like the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
Taking a dig at the Jan Lokpal bill, Khurshid said the government wanted to structure the ombudsman on the lines of the Supreme Court, but the activists’ version was more on the lines of the CBDT.
“Our instinct is that can we can have a Lokpal which looks as much like the Supreme Court (as possible)…We said we will give the same kind of powers, management, authority, transparency, autonomy, even the budget,” Khurshid told journalists at the Indian Women Press Corps here.
“Perhaps for someone who has worked at the Supreme Court, something that looks like Supreme Court would be attractive. Someone who has been in the Indian Revenue Services (IRS), the CBDT will look very attractive,” he said, taking a dig at Kejriwal, a former IRS official.
Khurshid was a Supreme Court lawyer before joining politics.
He also said that delegating power to different levels the way Jan Lokpal bill proposed was possible in an administrative sense but not for a quasi-judicial body.
“We don’t have problem about principles enunciated by Anna Hazare’s people, it’s the shape those principals will be given in the statute and the constitutional body where the problem lies,” he said.