Lokpal search committee to be reconstituted

NEW DELHI: The UPA-appointed search committee to nominate members for the Lokpal will soon undergo an overhaul as the government plans to include new names in the panel.

"There is no search committee for the Lokpal at the moment. It will be reconstituted," a senior government official said requesting anonymity.

Ahead of the announcement of the general election last year, the UPA government had appointed an eight-member search committee in February in a hurry with Justice (retd) K T Thomas as the Chairperson.

The other members were Kaki Madhava Rao (former IAS officer), F S Nariman (legal luminary), Prof Meenakshi Gopinath (educationist), M L Kumawat (former BSF Chief), H K Dua and Prof Mrinal Miri (Rajya Sabha MPs) and S Y Quraishi (former Chief Election Commissioner).

But later both Thomas and Nariman had refused to be part of the search panel.

Some of the members of the panel said they have not received any communication from the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) regarding the reconstitution exercise. "There has been no communication from the government so far," Prof Miri told PTI.

Other members approached by PTI refused to offer any comment, saying that it was the prerogative of the government to take a decision on reconstituting the panel.

The Narendra Modi government had in August last year notified the new rules for the search committee and given it more freedom to recommend names for the Chairperson and members of the anti-corruption body outside the list provided by DoPT.