Ahmedabad, Jul 3: Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily has said that a strong Lokpal bill is on the agenda of the Congress.
“The Congress government had prepared its own Lokpal bill in 2010 and we would have introduced it in parliament. But the civil society members tried to hijack the issue by launching their agitation,” Moily said on Saturday.
Moily said that a strong Lokpal bill is on the agenda of Congress as party President Sonia Gandhi had instructed us to draft a strong bill to curb corruption.
Moily who was part of joint drafting committee of the Lokpal bill said they had nine meetings with the members of civil society and each meeting continued for over three hours.
“Out of 40 points presented by the civil society we accepted 34 points. There are only six points of difference. The differences are such that it would call for amending the constitution if we had accepted them,” Moily said. They wanted to cover higher judiciary under the Lokpal ambit which is against the constitutional principal of division of power, Moily said.
“In this country it is the duty of parliament to form bills. But the civil society wants to bypass the parliament and bypass the constitution”, Moily said. “Nobody has given mandate to civil society to change the constitution,” Moily said.
“In our country parliament forms laws. Every bill is formed after consultations, then it is cleared by cabinet and then it goes to parliament. The parliament can pass that law or it can send it to one of its committees”, Moily said. “Nobody can take that right of formation of laws from parliament,” he further said.
Now, the prime minister has called an all party meeting to invite suggestions on the Lokpal bill, Moily said.In reply to a question on the recent reports of destruction of records pertaining to 2002 riots, Moily said, “Destruction of records when the Supreme Court is monitoring the inquiry of the riots cases is totally unpardonable”.
Last week Gujarat government consul S B Vakil had said that as per the routine procedure, State Intelligence Bureau records pertaining to 2002 riots were destroyed. PTI
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