Subramanian Swamy ridicules Govt. Lokpal Bill

New Delhi, Dec 22 (ANI): Terming the government Lokpal Bill draft to be ridiculous, Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy on Thursday criticised the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre for having kept the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) deliberately out of the ambit of the anti-graft bill.

"This bill that is being brought is a ridiculous bill. It is better than not having brought a bill at all because the fact of the matter is that on the Chidambaram case, the CBI has shown itself totally a boneless and spineless," he told mediapersons outside the Parliament here.

Swamy further demanded to give autonomous status to the CBI and that the Lokpal would monitor its functioning.

"I think, it will be sufficient for prosecution of corruption cases if the CBI has a special act under which it functions autonomously where both the government and the Lokpal can direct the CBI to do certain things and monitor it," he added.

Meanwhile, Communist Party of India (Marxist) lawmaker Sitaram Yechury echoing similar sentiments said the bill was prepared in a haste, and added that the Constitutional Amendment Bill should have been tabled before thinking of giving Lokpal a constitutional mandate.

"One thing is very clear that the bill has been brought about in certain haste in terms of its drafting. Now, there is also a very important Constitution Amendment bill. Now, this 116th Amendment is a very important issue," said Yechury.

"I mean ordinarily if you are going to create the institution of Lokpal, if it is going to have a constitutional mandate the Constitutional Amendment should first have been adopted and then the Lokpal should have been brought," he added.

The Union Cabinet had on Tuesday approved the Bill for creation of the Lokpal with Constitutional status. The Bill was today introduced in the Lok Sabha

The fresh Bill allows the Lokpal to oversee investigation of cases referred by it by the CBI. But, the Bill clearly mentions that CBI will continue to be under the government's administrative control.

Veteran social activist Anna Hazare has, however, written a letter to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, and threatened to go ahead with his proposed three-day fast from December 27 for a strong Lokpal Bill. (ANI)