The Lokpal

The Lokpal
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The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act of 2013 is a \"workable piece of legislation\" and it was not justifiable to keep its operation pending.  As per the Act, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha will be part of the Lokpal selection panel.

The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act of 2013 is a "workable piece of legislation" and it was not justifiable to keep its operation pending. As per the Act, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha will be part of the Lokpal selection panel.

At present, there is no Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The Congress, the largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha, lacks requisite number of MPs. Therefore, the Leader of Opposition post was not granted to it. A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Naveen Sinha, said, "We are holding that it is a workable piece of legislation and it is not justifiable to keep this pending."

The Bill was tabled in the Lok Sabha on 22 December 2011 and was passed by the House on 27 December as The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011. It was subsequently tabled in the Rajya Sabha on 29 December. After a marathon debate that stretched until midnight of the following day, the vote failed to take place for lack of time. On 21 May 2012, it was referred to a Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha for consideration.

It was passed in the Rajya Sabha on 17 December 2013 after making certain amendments to the earlier Bill and in the Lok Sabha the next day. It received assent from President Pranab Mukherjee on 1 January 2014 and came into force from 16 January. The Lokpal is responsible for enquiring into corruption charges at the national level while the Lokayukta performs the same function at the state level.

The Lokpal Bill provides for the filing, with the ombudsman, of complaints of corruption against the prime minister, other ministers, and MPs. The concept of an ombudsman is borrowed from Sweden. A bill to amend the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, was passed by Parliament on Thursday doing away with the time limit for public servants and trustees of NGOs, receiving government funds of more than Rs 1 crore or foreign funding of more than Rs 10 lakh, to furnish details of their assets and liabilities, which as per the original act was 31 July every year, writes Wikipedia.

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