New Delhi:
The Lok Sabha on Tuesday swiftly passed a bill to allow an extension of the July 31 deadline for 50 lakh central government employees and directors and trustees in NGOs to declare their assets.
The bill, which amends section 44 of the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act, was moved in the Lok Sabha and was passed by voice vote without discussion, with only a CPM lawmaker saying no. The Left party asked why the haste in passing the amendment, worried that it could be seen as a dilution of the anti-corruption law.
The bill will now go to the Rajya Sabha for approval and Section 44, which deals with declaration of assets and liabilities of public servants, and will be reviewed by a parliamentary committee which is expected to give its report only in the next session of Parliament.
A team of parliamentarians from various political parties had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley earlier this week to seek their intervention over a government notification which said that directors, trustees and other office-holders in NGOs which receive more than one crore rupees in government funds or more than 10 lakhs as donation from abroad would be treated as public servants and would have to disclose their income and assets and those of their spouses and dependent children by July 31 this year.
Social activists said the move would discourage individuals who accept honorary appointments in NGOs for pro-bono service.
The government has rejected the criticism that the amendment is aimed at "diluting" the transparency law. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar also said the amendment bill was brought after consulting all political parties.
"There is no dilution, there is no intention to dilute the act (Lokpal Act). It is crystal clear. The matter has been brought according to sense of the house," Ananth Kumar said.
The Congress has made clear that it is "not binding" on it to back the government on the bill in the Rajya Sabha, where the government is in a minority. "We have to live with the reality of numbers in the Lok Sabha ... Certainly it does not mean it is binding on us in the Rajya Sabha," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said on criticism that the amendment aims at diluting the transparency law.