Judiciary likely to be out of Lokpal purview?

New Delhi, Nov 15: The Parliamentary standing committee, which is examining the Lokpal bill have decided to keep the judiciary out of the anti-corruption ombudsman's purview.

Sources said that the panel has decided that the Lokpal bill would also provide for Lokayuktas in states, as demanded by Anna Hazare led civil society group.

Meanwhile, the panel has supported the inclusion of Central government"s Group B staff under the Lokpal"s ambit, as against the original proposal of including just the 85,000-odd Group A staff. Group B services roughly included 1.7 lakh staff.

The panel is also in favour of lowering punishment for filing false complaints against public servants with proposed Lokpal and such complaints might be treated in lines of contempt of court proceedings. Moreover, the committee is planning to lower down imprisonment to 1 year against 2 years and a penalty of up to Rs 1 lakh instead of 2 lakh for persons filing frivolous complaints.

Reacting to the recent development on Lokpal, a key Team Anna member, Arvind Kejriwal has expressed unhappiness and said that judiciary must come under Lokpal's purview. Meanwhile, he supported the committee's decision to bring Group B government staff under the Lokpal purview and demanded that Group C and D staff should also be brought under Lokpal's purview as they are the ones with whom the common man deals on a day to day basis.

OneIndia News