Santosh Hegde insists on inclusion of PM in Lokpal Bill

Coimbatore, Dec 3 (ANI): Reacting to the draft report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Lokpal Bill, former Karnataka Lokayukta K Santosh Hegde has said that the office of the Prime Minister should be included in the ambit of the Bill.

Talking to reporters here, Hegde said: "I personally do not find anything wrong in Prime Minister being brought under the purview of it because even today the Prime Minister is under the surveillance of CBI when there is allegation of corruption. There is no exception of Prime Minister or judges."

He said that frivolous complaints against the Prime Minister should be dealt cautiously and he should be asked to resign only when a court frames a charge sheet against him.

Hegde also advocated for a right to recall lawmakers in state assemblies or Parliament based on a performance audit every year, saying people must know what their elected representatives were doing for their constituencies.

"I think there should be a right to recall. There should also be a performance audit of all the members of the Parliament and Assemblies. An annual performance should be there which can be easily maintained by the local secretariat of the Assembly or the Parliament secretariat so that the people of the constituency will know what exactly did their representatives do in the past one year," he added.

The draft report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Lokpal Bill has proposed to bring social groups and media in the anti-graft legislation, while excluding lower bureaucracy, Citizen's Charter and the federal probe agency, Central Bureau of Investigation's anti-corruption wing.

The Jan Lokpal Bill is seen as a weapon to root out corruption and nepotism from the government machinery and in public life.

The 74-year-old social activist had staged an indefinite hunger strike against graft that he gave up on the 13th day on August 28 when the government agreed to deliberate the issues raised by him and his forum vis-a-vis the passage and enactment of the Lokpal Bill, a suggestion that has received unprecedented nationwide backing. (ANI)