For details, Team Anna meets House panel head

Social activist Anna Hazare's team may make a second appearance before the parliamentary panel examining the highly-publicised Lokpal Bill, towards the end of October. HT reports.

Social activist Anna Hazare's team may make a second appearance before the parliamentary panel examining the highly-publicised Lokpal Bill, towards the end of October.

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Two main members of Hazare's team, lawyer Prashant Bhushan and Right to Information activist, Arvind Kejriwal, met Abhishek Singhvi, the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on law and justice, on Tuesday evening.

"We had come to find out how the standing committee will proceed and the time it will take," Bhushan said after an informal interaction with Singhvi.

Bhushan said Singhvi assured them that all those interested in giving their inputs on the lokpal bill would be invited and the committee will consider all the bills made available to it.

The Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by team Anna was referred to the Committee by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), and the government's lokpal bill introduced in Lok Sabha in August 4 was referred to the panel on August 8.

"He (Singhvi) said the deadline of October-end for the committee to complete its report will be met so that the bill could be considered in the Winter session of parliament," Bhushan said.

Soon after the lokpal bill was referred to the parliamentary panel, Hazare and his associates had appeared before it and had demanded withdrawal of the government's bill. Team Anna, which had earlier termed the government's version of the Lokpal bill as a "bill to encourage corruption", in its revised stand now states that since the bill would have to undergo many changes, therefore they were not pressing their earlier demand.

Bhushan said "ideally" his associates would have liked the parliamentary panel to complete its report in a month, after which Parliament could pass the lokpal bill during a special session.