Experts: Legal, practical problems over demands
While the resolution referring three key demands raised by Gandhian activist Anna Hazare was adopted by Parliament Saturday, questions have arisen about their practicability, legality and even constitutionality.
Some experts feel inclusion of these three demands — bringing the lower bureaucracy under the Lokpal; Lokayuktas in the states; and a citizens’ charter to guide government employees — would create difficulties for the parliamentary standing committee.
Some say, however, that these difficulties could be overcome by seeking a constitutional amendment if there was a “political will” to do so. “The exercise yesterday in Parliament is not constitutionally binding on the standing committee and on Parliament itself. It has no legal force, but it is certainly morally binding,” said former additional solicitor-general K.N. Bhat.
The Constitution, he pointed out, doesn’t permit Parliament to pass laws for the states on matters falling in the “state list”.
Even Team Anna realised this, he said, hence the demand for Lokayuktas in states.
One way out, the BJP suggested, is if two or more states request Parliament, under Article 252, to pass a Lokayukta law for them, and other states later adopt it. “But it will purely be an ‘enabling act’, leaving it entirely to a particular state to adopt it or not,” Mr Bhat said, noting that sometime back Parlia-ment had passed the Urban Land Ceiling Act, though the matter was a state subject.
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