‘
‘However, the sticking point remained over the contentious issue of referring the Jan Lokpal Bill to the Standing Committee of Parliament, an offer made by Singh in a letter to Hazare, and rejected by Hazare’s team during the discussions.’
The process of enacting a Law is to be followed.
Any Bill of this importance has to be referred to the Standing committee ,which, then has to invite opinions from the Public, incorporate them and present the Draft Bill in the Parliament.
I fail to understand why Anna Hazare and his team are objecting to this procedure, especially they have with them Bhushan Duo and Santosh Hegde, who know law.
The Government is right in asserting this point.
‘With regard to bringing higher judiciary under the Lokpal, Kejriwal said the government had promised to bring a separate law. The team Hazare wanted that bill be shown to them and passed along with the Lokpal Bill.’
The same procedure has to be followed as in the last point.
They can be shown the Bill and they can offer suggestions to improve upon the Draft Bill.
I do not see any point of contention is here.
Insisting that it has to passed along with the Lokpal Bill sees to be a little hasty as the Standing Committee should have sufficient time for inviting public opinion and arrive at a Draft.
‘ bringing the lower bureaucracy under Lokpal, preparing a citizens charter by all departments and establishment of Lokayuktas in all states.’
The Government is correct in stating that the States have to establish Loayuktas wherever they are not and the Central Government has to await the States Compliance as ours is federal setup.
Alternately the entire Bill has to be made as a constitutional Amendment and even in that case the time factor shall be there, that is, it can not be done right within the session of the Parliament.
Team Anna has to heed to established norms.
They may indicate to the Public the time factor involved taking into account these factors and probably announce a probable date for completion of this process.
As far as bringing in all the employees under Lokpal(including the lower cadre),this involve s about 40 lakhs of Employees and it will require a massive structure to administer Lokpal at this level.
The lower cadre corruption may be tackled by the existing Laws themselves;if warranted, the department/Department head may be impleaded as the co-respondent.
Citizen’s Charter defining Time Frame for tasks in Public offices.
Team Anna is Right and the Government should fix the time frame and agree on a fine, which can be deducted from the salary of who handle these files.
This should be a part of the Lokpal Bill..
Anna may concede that there might be better suggestions from the people in the passing of the Bill and his team need not assume that their word on any thing alone final.
They have done a job ;they made the Government wake up and the Government can not go back as Elections are due.
If they do not pay heed, let us take care of them in the elections.
By precipitating matters on a sense of injured pride, we are making the Government and the politicians martyrs which they shall use at the time of Elections and shall revert to their thuggery.
Wise to know when to stop with the knowledge that there is tomorrow, meaning elections.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Govt-Team-Anna-hold-talks-sticking-points-remain/Article1-736712.aspx