Minister of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V Narayanasami today defended the CBI on the raid conducted on DMK leader Stalin last week and promised that the Lok Pal Bill would be presented in Parliament when the budget session resumes in April.
Speaking at the National Editors Conference in the Capital, he denied that he was hauled up by Congress president Sonia Gandhi for the raid and said it was one of the 19 locations raided by CBI as part of an investigation into a tax evasion case concerning 33 imported cars.
How could I call up CBI and stop them from raiding Stalin alone, when 17 cars were recovered from the 19 raids ? Then you would call that interference, he said.
Accusing the media of creating a perception of corruption in society he said the Government was working on a slew of anti corruption and transparency measures much before the activists under Anna Hazare started an anti corruption movement.
He said the Government was all set to present the Lok Pal Bill in Parliament when it resumes the session in April. A wrong impression was created by the activists alongwith the media that they wanted the Lok Pal Bill. It was not their initiative at all. Five months before the agitation started the Prime Minister had set up a Group of Ministers under Pranab Mukherji to look into solutions for various kinds of corruption., Narayanasami said.
Lok Pal Bill was one of the items before the GoM. The other items were State funding of elections, open system of procurement, time bound delivery of services, disposal of natural resources, removal of badly performing officers and corruption in private sector.
Of these the Lok Pal Bill and Time Bound Delivery of Services Bill are ready to be presented in Parliament, while the Procurement Bill is now with the Standing Committee, he said.
The latter is to ensure transparency in the procurement of goods and services. About two lakh crore rupees worth of goods and services are procured through an open system now, the minister said.
The Time Bound Delivery of Services Bill or the Grievance Redressal Bill, the minister said was modeled on the Right to Information Bill and would not pose a threat to federalism as feared by some Opposition parties.
He said that it would have a State and Central Commission which would ensure that grievances of the public regarding all services provided by the State are addressed at the State level while grievances regarding services provided by the Centre are addressed by the Central commission.
The objective is to ensure that people get services on time and get grievance redressed in a month, the minister said.
The Ministry is also amending the Prevention of Corruption Act to ensure that bribe givers are also punished, he said.
While these measures are to take care of corruption or non performance at the level of Government, the Home Ministry is to amend the Indian Penal Code soon to tackle corruption in the private sector, Narayanasami said.
Pending anti- corruption Bills
1.Lok Pal Bill-------------------(Awaits presentation in Parliament)
2. TImely Delivery of Services Bill (Not tabled)
3. Whistle Blowers Bill (Tabled in RS only)
4. Procurement Bill (With Standing COmmittee)
5. Amendment in Prevention of Corruption Act to punish bribe givers (Not tabled)
