Investigators would have access to all documents" Govt

New Delhi (PTI) - Seeking to dispel suggestions
that the proposed Lokpal won't be able to probe 2G-like scams,
government has indicated that investigators would have access
to all relevant documents but the Prime Minister would not be
a subject of the inquiry.
"Nobody has said that the papers will not be
available. Nobody has said that there will be a vast area of
ambiguity. All we said that the Prime Minister will not be a
subject of an inquiry," Indian Law Minister Salman Khursheed
told Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate programme for CNN-IBN.
He made it clear that there was no immunity to the
Prime Minister from facing a probe but only postponing such
action till he is in office.
"...here there is no immunity. This is only postponing
for a particular period your right to inquire. Meanwhile, the
Prime Minister remains susceptible to any action of normal
laws of the country," Khursheed said.
He said the decision to keep the Prime Minister
outside the ambit of the Lokpal was taken after factoring in
various arguments.
"I do believe and so do most of us that the Prime
Minister's position in this country as the top executive
functionary is so much dependant in terms of national
security, in terms of international relations and in terms of
pivotal decisions that if you want to bring a big question
mark on that office during the tenure of the person in that
office, then you want to hurt your country," Khursheed said.
Khursheed admitted that some of his Cabinet colleagues
had changed their opinion on the issue of keeping the Prime
Minister outside the ambit of the Lokpal.
"May be I have changed my mind, may be other
colleagues have changed their mind. This is an ongoing
dialogue where we consider every relevant issue from time to
time in the context of our experience and then we arrive at a
position," he said in response to a specific question.
"Now, why should we say to someone that you have no
right to change your position," he said.
On claims that keeping the Prime Minister outside the
Lokpal ambit was violative of certain UN conventions, he
pointed out the convention states that the arrangements made
by any country should factor in national laws.
"The convention also says that whatever arrangements
you make in response to your signing that convention has to
factor in your own national law and the national law includes
the Constitution," the minister said.
Asked about lawyer Prashant Bhushan's remarks that the
Supreme Court would declare the Lokpal Act as
unconstitutional, Khursheed said he would not take the
activist lawyer's opinion as final.
On claims by the civil society led by Anna Hazare that
the Judicial Accountability Bill deals with misconduct of the
judiciary and not corruption, he said misconduct includes
corruption.
"Do you actually have to call a judge corrupt to take
action? If there is a wider ambit that even someone who does
not take money but misbehaves in another manner would be
subject to the same rigour of the law as someone who is
corrupt (then) what is wrong with that?" he asked.