LOKPAL PANEL MEET ON JULY 19 TO FORM SEARCH COMMITTEE

NEW DELHI: The Lokpal selection committee headed by the Prime Minister is scheduled to meet on July 19 to constitute a search panel, which will recommend names for the appointment of Lokpal, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

“Let’s begin on an optimistic note. We do not wish to issue a mandamus. We hope that the selection and search committee will expeditiously finalise the names,” a bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi said after attorney general KK Venugopal informed it about the proposed meet.

The bench refrained from passing any order and noted that the selection committee will have to first constitute a search panel that will lay down the norms and criterion for the appointment of a Lokpal. The AG, however, could not apprise the bench as to how much time the government would take to complete the process as was directed by the court on the last hearing.

When the court sought a report and posted the matter for further hearing on July 24, Venugopal pointed out the panel may not be able to complete the deliberations in one sitting.

Terming the Act as “an eminently workable piece of legislation”, the top court had in 2017 said there was no justification to keep the enforcement of the Lokpal Act suspended till the proposed amendment, including on the issue of the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, were cleared by the Parliament. Centre is facing allegations of violating the top court’s order .

Petitioner Common Cause, on whose petition the 2017 verdict was delivered, insisted that the court should invoke it’s extra-ordinary power under the Constitution to appoint the Lokpal.

It has accused the Centre of dilly-dallying of the appointment. So far the court has refrained from exercising its constitutional powers.

Nudged by the court in May this year, the government appointed former AG Mukul Rohatgi as eminent jurist in the Lokpal selection panel, a post that fell vacant after the death of senior advocate PP Rao in September 2017.

As the appointment of Lokpal gets delayed for various reasons, the Supreme Court had on July 2 asked the Centre to inform it in 10 days the time frame for steps to be taken for the appointment of India’s first anti-corruption ombudsman.