Higher judiciary should be kept out of Lokpal’

Higher judiciary should be kept out of Lokpal’
PTI - 24 Apr 2011 09-NEW DELHI: A conference on Lokpal today felt that higher judiciary should be kept out of the proposed law against corruption but was divided on bringing the Prime Minister under its ambit.
The Round Table meeting which was attended by two former chief justices of Supreme Court and four members of the Lokpal drafting committee including retired apex court judge Santosh Hegde among others felt there should be a separate mechanism to deal with any instances of corruption in the higher judiciary.
Speaking to media persons after taking part in the day-long round table conference, under the banner of Citizens for Public Accountability(CPA), retired Supreme Court chief justices M N Venkatachalaiah and J S Verma said " Judicial accountability has to be there but not as part of Lokpal. To curb the corruption in the higher judiciary, a better mechanism is required".

Claiming that the round table had a consensus over the issue of higher judiciary be kept out of Lokpal, the retired judges said the civil society representatives in the joint committee to draft the Lokpal bill felt the same way.
However, on the issue as to whether Lokpal should have jurisdiction over the Prime Minister, they said there were differences of opinion among the participants and that the issue should be left to Parliament for consideration."We believe that he (Prime Minister) should be accountable only politically looking into the instability in the state and its international ramifications. However there was divergent opinions and we could not come to a conclusion and left it to Parliament to take a decision," they said.Besides emphasizing for an anti-corruption law and its enforcement in the country, the issues pertaining to seamless integration of CVC, CBI and Lokpal and also creation of strong and independent Lokayuktas in states were on the agenda of the round table conference.

The conference was organised jointly by Lok Satta, Centre for Media Studies, Foundation for Democratic Reforms and Transparency International India under the banner of CPA.Apart from Justice Venkatachalaiah, Justice Verma, the members of the government's drafting committee-Karnataka Lok Ayukta Justice Santosh Hegde, eminent lawyer Shanti Bhushan, his son Prashant Bhushan and RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal and some eninent jurists, retired Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy and former Chief Vigilance commissioner Pratyush Sinha participated in the conference.