India parliament passes anti-corruption agency

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, NEW DELHI -- The upper house of India’s parliament recently passed a long-pending anti-corruption bill that will establish an independent authority to pursue complaints of corruption against the government.

Under the Lokpal Bill, an ombudsman authority known as the Lokpal is to be created and its three members will be appointed jointly by the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, and the chief justice of the supreme court. One of its three members has to be an eminent jurist.

The Lokpal can direct the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), an elite federal police agency, to investigate corruption complaints against the government.

The bill also enjoins each of India’s states to set up a state-level version of the Lokpal, called the Lokayukta, within a year.

“Never before in the history of this country has such a bill had such a wide discussion,” Kapil Sibal, India’s law minister, said at the start of parliamentary proceeding.