Lokpal boils down to CBI custody

The Lokpal battle has intensified with the government on Tuesday getting ready to take on Team Anna as well as the opposition.

Unfazed by Anna Hazare’s threat of going on a fast from December 27, the Union cabinet approved the new draft Lokpal Bill at a special meeting in the night. The government worked “day and night”, as law minister Salman Khurshid said on Monday, to come up with the draft.

The crucial points in the draft are keeping the prime minister within the Lokpal’s ambit, albeit with certain conditions; keeping the CBI under the government’s control (it will, however, investigate cases referred to it by the Lokpal); and reserving 50% of the seats on the Lokpal bench and the Lokpal search committee for SC/STs, OBCs, minorities and women. Half of the bench will have members with a judicial background.

While Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Congress spokesperson, said the “government will do what it thinks appropriate and dissenters can do what they think appropriate”, Arvind Kejriwal, RTI activist and core Team Anna member, termed it a “joke” and a “fraud”.

At a press conference in Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, Hazare accused the government of betraying the people, going back on its word, and coming up with a weak Lokpal Bill. Hazare said the “weak” citizens' charter showed that the “government's intentions are not honest”.

“Let the government go its way, we will go our way,” he said while announcing that he would fast on December 27, 28 and 29 in Mumbai and start a jail bharo movement across the country on January 1, 2012.

Singhvi, who also heads the parliamentary standing committee that oversaw the drafting of the bill, said, “It is not the government’s job to ensure passage of every bill according to the demands of a group of persons who appear to threaten a fast every second.”

The CBI, according to the new draft, will act as the Lokpal’s investigating arm, but the controls will remain with the government. The lower bureaucracy will come under the Lokpal, but the Central Vigilance Commission will be the ombudsman's investigating arm for this class of employees.

Former top cop Kiran Bedi, another key member of Team Anna, lambasted the government. “Have you ever heard of an investigating body that has no investigation powers?” she asked. “It is better not to have such a Lokpal as it will destroy whatever is left of the CBI. Are we dumb citizens who can be given anything?”

Once details of the new draft became public, it was clear that the government had decided that offence would be the best defence, more so at a time when it is busy firefighting on several fronts — the 2G spectrum allocation scam, allegations that Union home minister P Chidambaram was in the know when former telecom minister A Raja gave out spectrum licences, the Commonwealth Games scam, inflation, and black money stashed in foreign banks, to name a few.