Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 24 (IANS) The proposed Lokpal bill, according to its draft, envisages an 11-member panel, whose members will have to end their membership of a legislature, political party or association with any work or business before assuming office. They will only serve a single term of up to five years and be ineligible for any elected office or government job afterwards.

The members will have to be persons of “impeccable integrity, outstanding ability and standing”, according to an official draft that was prepared by the five ministers on the basis of consensus reached at the joint drafting committee meetings and released by Law and Justice Minister M. Veerappa Moily Friday.

The member of the Lokpal will have a term not exceeding five years from the date on which they enter office or until they attain the age of 70 years, whichever is earlier.

“The Chairman or a Member shall not be a member of parliament or member of the legislature of any State or Union territory and shall not hold any office of trust or profit (other than his office as a Chairman or a Member) or be connected with any political party or carry on any business or practice any profession and accordingly, before he enters upon his office, as person appointed as the Chairman or a Member as the case may be, shall resign or sever that relationship.”

On completing their tenure of the anti-graft body, they would be ineligible for re-appointment to the anti-graft body, contesting election for the office of president, vice president, for membership of Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha, state legislature, municipality and panchayat. They would also be barred from any diplomatic assignment or any appointment that is made by President of India.

The chairman and the members of the proposed Lokpal should have “special knowledge of, and professional, experience of not less than twenty-five years in public affairs, administrative law, and policy, academics, commerce and industry, law, finance or management.”

Besides this, the judicial member should be either the sitting or former chief justice of a high court or a judge of the Supreme Court.

The chairman or member of the Lokpal would be appointed and administered oath by the president.

The selection committee would include the prime minister, the Lok Sabha speaker, leader of the house other than the house to which prime minister belongs, the union home minister, leaders of opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha (in case there is no recognised opposition party either in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha or the both, then the leader of the largest political party in opposition to the government would on the selection panel), a sitting judge of the Supreme Court and a chief justice of a high court to be nominated by the chief justice of India, the president or senior-most professor of the National Academy of Sciences and the cabinet secretary who will also be the secretary of the selection panel.

The selection panel could constitute a “search committee” for preparing the panel of people to be considered for selection as chairman or member of the anti-graft body. The chairman and the member of the Lokpal could be divested of their office by the president upon making a reference to the Supreme Court for inquiry into the allegation of misbehaviour.

The five ministers in the joint panel were Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, Moily and Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. The civil society representatives were veteran activist Anna Hazare, former law minister and lawyer Shanti Bhushan, his son and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Right to Information (RTI) activist Arvind Kejriwal and Karnataka Lokayukta N. Santosh Hegde.