Law Min's advice sought on disclosing Lokpal audio recordings

New Delhi, Sep 5 (PTI) The Indian Government has sought
the advice of the Law Ministry on making public the audio
recordings of proceedings of the joint drafting comittee on
the Lokpal (anti-corruption ombudsman) Bill constituted after
Anna Hazare's fast in April.
The Committee comprising five members of team Anna and
five cabinet ministers was formed to finalise the draft of the
Lokpal Bill and audio recordings of the proceedings were made.
"Joint drafting committee was constituted by notification
of the Ministry of Law and Justice wherein JDC was supposed to
evolve its own procedure.
"It may be further noted that the matter relating to RTI
queries on audio-recordings of JDC has been referred to
Department of Legal Affairs in Ministry of Law and Justice for
clarification," an RTI (Right to Information) response from
Department of Personnel and Training has said.
Activist S C Agrawal had sought to know from the
Personnel Department the audio recordings of the proceedings
of the committee in the form of a compact CDs.
The department said it has posted the details of
proceedings in the form of minutes on its website but the
audio-recordings were not available with it.
The Committee constituted on April 10 included Finance
Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram, the
then Law Minister Veerappa Moily, Telecom and HRD Minister
Kapil Sibal and the then Minority Affairs Minister, Salman
Khursheed.
The civil society members included Anna Hazare, Justice N
Santosh Hedge, Shanti Bhushan, Prashan Bhushan and Arvind
Kejriwal.