A parliamentary committee, entrusted by the Rajya Sabha to strengthen the Lokpal and Lokayukta law, has sought to go soft on bureaucrats, exempting them from disclosing the assets and liabilities of their spouses and children, saying that civil servants should “spend less time on non-productive activities and more time on productive activities.”
Deviating from the spirit of the anti-corruption watchdog body that envisaged that all public servants disclose assets owned by them and their spouses and children, the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice has agreed with the PMO-monitored Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) that public servants should make disclosure only to the “competent authority”.
However, the authority, which in this case is the DoPT, would forward a copy of the disclosure to the Lokpal “who shall keep these declarations in a fiduciary capacity,” which means that the details wouldn’t be disclosed or put in the public domain.