Civil society not to be used again in drafting of law: Sibal

New Delhi (PTI) - After a not so pleasant
experience of engaging with Anna Hazare's team in drafting of
the Lokpal (Ombudsman) Bill, Indian government says that there
will be no such experiment in the future.
Indian Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil
Sibal, one of the key members of the joint committee for
drafting the Lokpal Bill, also maintains that it cannot be
cited as a precedent.
He says the draft of the bill will undergo changes
after consultations with political parties and other members
of the civil society.
"I don't say it is a precedent. In the given
situation, the government was in, it is a decision that we
took with open eyes and I don't consider it to be a
precedent... the government was in a particular situation,"
Sibal told PTI in an interview.
He was asked if in the future some activists could
resort to agitation to be part of the law-making process.
Asked if it was a "one-off" episode, the noted
lawyer-turned-politician said, "I would imagine so."
Sibal emphasised that the draft bill prepared by the
five ministers was not the "final bill" and "it will go
through changes when we get inputs not just from other
political parties but also other members of civil society".
The government is holding a meeting with political
parties on the issue on July.
Sibal refused to make any comment on Hazare's decision
to go on hunger strike again from August 16 but said "when
that situation arises, I am sure the government will deal with
it."
Noting that Hazare's associates Justice Santosh Hegde
and Swami Agnivesh had publicly stated that the "fast is not
the way", the Minister said he was sure that the Gandhian "has
the wisdom to decide what is best for him and the country".
He maintained that Hazare and his associates had
wanted to create an authority outside the system which would
be "accountable to nobody" and asserted that this could not be
allowed to happen.
Asked why the committee could not firm up a common
draft and wound up work in bitterness, Sibal said, "On certain
very significant issues, there was a huge divergence of
perception and opinion, and the twain could not meet."
The committee, which met nine times during two months
since it was set up in April, failed to firm up a single draft
of the bill and it was decided that a note including views of
both the government and Hazare's team would be put up before
Cabinet for consideration.
Insisting that bringing Prime Minister under Lokpal
was never the "central" issue of the committee's discussions,
Sibal said, "I think the basic issue was how do you set up an
authority outside the system not accountable to anybody.
"How do you ensure that that authority, which is
outside the system, will function in a chaste manner,
uncorrupted, only because it is under the Lokpal. These are
the essential issues that were of concern to us, on which, of
course, there was huge divergence of opinion."
However, Sibal termed the experience of working with
civil activists in law-making as "enriching" and would not
"castigate" the views of Hazare team which included Karnataka
Lokayukta Justice Hegde, father-son lawyer duo of Shanti
Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan and Right To Information (RTI)
activist Arvind Kejriwal.
Rejecting Hazare's contention that he was not seeking
to create a "parallel" structure to the government, the
minister said the activist's comparison of the Jan Lokpal with
institutions like Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was "completely
arduous".
On the issue regarding Ramdev, Sibal said the
government was able to "expose" what the yoga teacher stood
for.
"We exposed him in the sense that actually he was
negotiating with us and giving promises to us and was doing
just the opposite at Ramlila ground contrary to the permission
granted," he said.
Sibal dismissed suggestions that the government was
embarrassed over four union ministers visiting Ramdev at the
airport and that there was a sense of uneasiness in the party
on the issue.
"Ultimately the government was able to expose what
Ramdev really stood for. Had we not met him, we would never
have been able to expose him," he said.