Hegde mulls quitting Lokpal Bill drafting panel

Thursday April 21, 2011 08:34:49 PM, IANS

Bangalore: Karnataka Lokayukta (ombudsman) N. Santosh Hegde said Thursday that he was thinking of leaving the Lokpal Bill drafting panel in view of the campaign against some of its civil society members.

"I am seriously thinking of quitting the Lokpal panel," Hegde, a retired judge of the Supreme Court and one of the five civil society members on the panel which has five central ministers as well, told NDTV news channel.

Hegde's plan to rethink on continuing in the panel follows the controversy surrounding two other civil society members on the panel - co-chairman Shanti Bhushan and his son Prashant, both leading lawyers.

"I want to expose the vilification campaign," Hegde told the channel.

He said he would visit New Delhi to discuss his plans with colleagues on the panel, which was set up after veteran social activist Anna Hazare went on a fast-unto-death at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi demanding acceptance of 'Jan (peoples) Lokpal bill', drafted by the civil society organisations.

Hazare ended the fast on the fifth day after the central government agreed to set up a 10-member panel - five from civil society and five from government - to draft a new Lokpal Bill.

Hegde was among those who drafted the 'Jan Lokpal bill'.

Hedge told the channel that was frustrated with the "smear campaign" against civil society representatives in the ten-member drafting panel.

While controversy has surrounded the two Bhushans for the last few days, Hegde also came under attack from senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh Thursday.

At a press conference in Lucknow, Singh reportedly questioned what Hegde had done to curb corruption in Karnataka where the Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister B.S.Yeddyurappa is facing various corruption and illegal land deal charges.

 

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Picture of the Day

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and his wife Mrs Gursharan Kaur in a procession for laying wreath ceremony at Monument of the Defenders of Motherland, at Astana, in Kazakhstan on April 16, 2011.

(Photo: Shivraj)