Lokpal consultations to begin afresh today

The move for building a consensus on Lokpal Bill is expected to start afresh on Monday when a Parliament panel will take up for examination the much-touted measure to set up an anti-graft ombudsman.

The Rajya Sabha Select Committee, chaired by Congress leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi, will have its first meeting in New Delhi on Monday to narrow down differences among political parties on the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill.

The Bill, on which debate had remained inconclusive in the Rajya Sabha during the last Winter session, was referred to the Select Committee on the penultimate day of the Budget session.

On June 15, the Rajya Sabha notified a 15-member Select Committee chaired by Chaturvedi.

The committee has been asked to submit its report on the first day of the last week of the Monsoon session.

The members of the committee are Shantaram Naik, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Shadi Lal Batra (all Cong), Arun Jaitley, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Bhupendra Yadav (all BJP), K N Balagopal (CPI-M), Shivanand Tiwari (JD-U), Tiruchi Shiva (DMK), Satish Mishra (BSP), D Bandyopadhyay (TMC), Ramgopal Yadav (SP), D P Tripathi (NCP), V Maitreyan (AIADMK) and A K Ganguly (Nom).