New Delhi:
Team Anna today met senior BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj to lobby for the party's support for inclusion of lower bureaucracy, judiciary and CBI under the purview of proposed Lokpal.
Activists Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan, Kiran Bedi and Manish Sisodia met Jaitley, Swaraj and S S Alhuwalia in Parliament House where they discussed for about an hour the developments in the Standing Committee on Lokpal.
"We were not here to protest. We are holding meetings and will have more discussions," Mr Kejriwal told reporters after the meeting, which took place on the first day of Winter Session of Parliament.
Lokpal Bill is expected to be placed before the House for passing during this session. Anna Hazare has demanded that a strong bill be passed in this session itself or he will launch an agitation and campaign against Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls in five states next year.
Ms Bedi said it was useful to hear each other and was helpful in the current scenario.
Team Anna also expressed its willingness to de-link Citizen's Charter from the proposed anti-corruption ombudsman provided that a separate bill on the lines of the one in Uttarakhand be introduced in Parliament along with the Lokpal Bill.
The activists led by Anna Hazare have been demanding that Citizen's Charter should be part of the Lokpal Bill and they provided two options for the government - implement the resolution of Parliament and include the charter in Lokpal or bring a strong Grievance Redressal Bill.
"If the government wishes to bring a separate bill to deal with citizen's charters, we request that the Uttarakhand model for the same should be adopted wherein the citizen's charters have been provided through a separate bill.
"However, the violation of the same by various levels of officers in the same department is required to be strongly dealt with by judicial officers. In Uttarakhand, these judicial officers are selected, appointed and controlled by Lokayukta," a Team Anna statement said.
Claiming that the draft Public Grievances Redressal bill provides for a highly centralised system which is bound to collapse under its own weight, they said the Parliament resolution stated that three key issues would be addressed through the Lokpal Bill.
"We are surprised that contrary to that resolution, the government proposes to exclude Citizen's Charter from Lokpal's jurisdiction and bring a weak and ineffective bill to deal with citizen's grievances," they said.
The activists said that the Group C and D employees should be under the ambit of Lokpal, saying common man has to deal with these employees on a daily basis.
"Their exclusion means 57 lakh employees will be out of the ambit of Lokpal. Common man's plight will continue. The corruption in MNREGA, PDS and all will continue," he said.
On the issue of keeping CBI out of Lokpal's control, Team Anna said the Standing Committee proposal on the agency would reduce Lokpal to merely a post office - receive complaints, forward it to CBI, receive CBI's report and present it before the court.
They also argued for the inclusion of judiciary and Citizen's Charter in the Lokpal Bill, saying the separate legislations prepared by the government were "weak and ineffective".