The Centre shared its view with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Personnel chaired by BJP MP Sushil Modi. The panel had recommended that the government and judiciary should weed out differences and finalise the revised MoP, which is more efficient and transparent.
The panel in its report – Demand for Grants Pertaining to the Department of Justice – said the government was dedicated to finalising MoP to make the appointment process more transparent and efficient.
Sharing the details of the steps taken by it, as per the report, the Centre said the government “has been taking necessary actions to ensure finalisation of MoP and has sent a number of suggestions on supplementing MoP. No action is, therefore, pending on part of the government”.
In another report, the panel has taken a grim view of the performance of Lokpal, saying that no one has been prosecuted by the anti-corruption body. “Lokpal has submitted to the committee that it has not prosecuted even a single person accused of graft till date. The committee is of the considered opinion that Lokpal was set up to strengthen the legal and institutional mechanism to deal with corruption in public life. However, the performance of Lokpal seems to be far from satisfactory,” the panel said.
The panel recommended that the Lokpal shouldn’t reject genuine complaints merely on technical grounds. It noted that justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose demitted Lokpal chairman’s office in May 2022 on attaining the age of 70 years and since then justice Pradip Kumar Mohanty ‘has been acting as the chairperson’.