Sense seems to have prevailed on both sides.
Anna Hazare has done a great job in pressuring the Government the way he did, albeit he was about to carry his act to the extreme thereby paving the way for the Government to wiggle out.
On the other hand the Government did well to accede to his point that Citizen’s Charter with timeline( which l advocate in my earlier Blog
(‘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..’)
On Employees to be brought under Lokpal:
The Government is silent on the modalities which was a bone of contention between the Government and Team Anna.
(my view
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.
As far as bringing in all the employees under Lokpal(including the lower cadre),this involves 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.)
Lokpal will be set up at the Center and States-No time frame mentioned.
Finally Anna and Team have agreed to referring their demands being referred to the Standing Committee.
I think this is the correct decision.
my view -(
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.’)
‘ Both Houses of Parliament on Saturday passed a resolution conveying the sense of the House on the Lokpal Bill, paving the way forAnna Hazare to break his fast. …..
On a motion moved by Pranab Mukherjee, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha passed a resolution conveying the sense of the House on the Lokpal Bill. )’
There was some confusion over whether the resolution was passed by a voice vote or not. Apparently, no voice vote took place.
Some of the important points of the Lokpal resolution passed by Parliament are:
*An effective Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in states be set up.
*Employees of centre and state governments to be brought under purview of Lokpal and Lokayuktas respectively.
*All government departments to have citizen’s charter with timeline.
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