There was consensus on almost half of the 40 points brought to the table by Mr Anna Hazare's five-member team at the meeting of the Joint Drafting Committee for the Lokpal Bill.

Giving this information to mediapersons here after the meeting on Monday, co-chairman of the panel, senior lawyer Mr Shanti Bhushan, said the committee would meet again on May 30.

However, sources said views between the Government and civil society differed on bringing the higher judiciary and the Prime Minister within the ambit of the Lokpal and discussions on these were expected in the next meeting.

Broadly, the members agreed on a number of basic principles of the proposed law and decided to meet more often.

The Committee also decided to direct the Legislative Department to begin drafting the Lokpal Bill, sources said.

Emerging from the meeting, the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, said the Bill would be ready by June 30, in time for introduction in the Monsoon session of Parliament.

The meeting was chaired by the Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee.

Earlier, Mr Bhushan had raised the issue of slow progress on drafting and has expressed doubts whether the June 30 deadline would be met. Mr Sibal said there was complete agreement on the issue of the authority of Lokpal being independent without any interference from the Government.

On Monday, Mr Hazare's team had presented a set of suggestions from some other civil society groups on the Bill which also included recommendations of the public hearings on the issue held at various places across the country.

Social activist, Mr Arvind Kejriwal, said that the Government had “so far not rejected” any principle.

It had agreed to some principles totally, to some partially and said more discussions were needed on some of them, he added.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW