Major loopholes of Lokpal Bill

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 04 August 2011, 00:54 IST   |    57 Comments
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Bangalore: Terming the government's draft on Lokpal Bill an eyewash, the civil society has accused that it will "patronize" corruption and demanded it should be withdrawn. Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare and his team of eminent members of the civil society like Prashant Bhusan, Santosh Hegde, Kiran Bedi, and Arvind Kejriwal have proposed the Jan Lokpal Bill which will effectively deter corruption, redress grievances and protect whistleblowers. They have highlighted the loopholes in government's version of Lokpal Bill which will give rise to vested interests and would make it a fruitless bill. Let's have a look at some of the major loopholes of government's version of Lokpal Bill. 1. No suo moto recognition of legal cases
According to the government's proposal, Lokpal will not have any power to either initiate action suo motu in any case or even receive complaints of corruption from general public. It also says that complaints against the Legislature Members can only be registered to the Speaker of Parliament or the Chairperson of Rajya Sabha who can decide if it should be investigated by Lokpal. As Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy puts it, the proposed Lokpal Bill will become a 'jokepal bill' if it does not have an independent prosecution commission. However, Team Anna is adamant on giving Lokpal the powers to initiate investigations suo moto in any cases.

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