After the heated exchanges of last week, Team Anna and government representatives got back together to cover substantial ground on the Lokpal Bill today. The two sides agreed on several issues, including a 10-year maximum sentence for corruption and a large corpus to fund the Lokpal.
But the larger issue of control over the bureaucracy and the extent of the Lokpal’s powers remained unresolved. Government representatives strongly resisted the bid by Team Anna to include clauses with a potential to weaken the political executive and create a possibly counterproductive superstructure.
Each side will now present its own draft of the Bill at the final meeting of the committee tomorrow evening, where an attempt will be made to merge them into a common draft for Cabinet and, subsequently, Parliament approval.
No comments:
Post a Comment