Arms deals, sensitive organizations like the Indian space agency besides the prime minister will be under the jurisdiction of the proposed Lokpal or national ombudsman, N. Santosh Hegde, a member of the 10-member drafting panel said Monday. The panel proposed 'to bring arms deals, organisations like ISRO, besides the prime minister under the Lokpal purview', Hegde, Karnataka ombudsman and a civil society member of the drafting panel, said at a meeting...

Lawyer and co-chairman of the joint draft committee on the Lokpal Bill, Shanti Bhushan, has urged Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram to make public the report prepared by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Chandigarh, on the controversial CD containing his purported conversation with Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh and former SP leader Amar Singh. The Chandigarh CFSL report said the CD was a “cut-and-paste” job, contradicting the Delhi lab...

The Lokpal Act finally seems set to turn into reality. With civil society members and citizens turning the heat on the government over the setting up of the anti-corruption body, the Lokpal bill occupies centrestage in Delhi's politics. The joint panel, comprising civil society members and Union ministers, has been meeting in New Delhi to hammer out the draft of the anti-corruption bill. Let's take a look at the highlights...

The 1985 Lokpal Bill destroyed the raison d'etre of the institution of an ombudsman, but all successive governments copied it. PUBLIC anger was understandably aroused over the gross delay by Parliament in the last 40 years to enact a Lokpal Bill and with the toothless one that the government sponsored. It is not widely known that the delay was aggravated by deception and fraud in 1985. It was, however, emulated by...

As the joint drafting committee begins work on the Lokpal Bill, its civil society members face challenges from various quarters. AS the leader of the five-member civil society group within the 10-member joint drafting committee to prepare the new Lokpal Bill, Anna Hazare finds himself in an unenviable position. After his successful agitation for equal participation for civil society in the legislative exercise to create the first Lokpal at the Centre,...