New Delhi, July 28 (IANS) Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Brinda Karat Thursday said the prime minister should be included within the ambit of the Lokpal bill.
‘One of the issues raised is the question of keeping the prime minister outside the purview of the Lokpal. We don’t understand why, because since 1989 every single proposal had prime minister’s office in the Lokpal bill,’ she told a news channel.
She said that even in 2001, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who heads the committee that discussed the Lokpal bill, had included the prime minister.
‘What is the difference between 2001 and 2011? In fact, I think the prime minister should be included in the Lokpal,’ she added.
She was reacting to the cabinet approving a draft of an anti-corruption Lokpal bill, to be introduced in the monsoon session of parliament, that does not include the prime minister, the chief justice of India, judiciary or the conduct of MPs inside the house in its purview and has left the civil society members deeply disappointed.
Karat, a CPI-M politburo member, also asked for a separate judicial enquiry commission.
‘.. the commission should be a very strong commission, which shall have the right to scrutinize an anti-corruption law of those areas of the judiciary where there are serious charges of wrong doing,’ she added.
