New Delhi, December 13
The Cabinet today cleared key anti-corruption legislations - the Citizen’s Charter Bill, the Judicial Accountability Bill and the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosures Bill (Whistleblower’s Bill) - in an attempt to present a comprehensive anti-corruption framework in Parliament and blunt Team Anna’s anti-corruption campaign amid Opposition’s increasing support and charges of policy paralysis and inertia in the government.

However, the Cabinet also decided to put on hold UPA’s ambitious National Food Security Bill, apparently due to sharp differences on the legislation within the Congress-led coalition. Sources said the Bill, believed to cost the exchequer around Rs 1.2 lakh crore annually if all recommendations are accepted in the present form, found opposition from not just NCP chief and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar but also Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.

Pawar, who has voiced worries about the cost of the Bill several times in the past, asked for more spadework on the legislation that makes food a legal right while the Trinamool Congress wanted the Bill to be clear on the number of people to be covered and the system of redressing grievances before the government went about making Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s pet project a reality.

However, not just Pawar, others in the government have also pointed out that doling out food subsidy at the time when the economy was in doldrums might not be a wise move.

Sources said Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia had objected to the Bill in a Cabinet note.

The Congress core group also recommended that the Food Bill be put on hold till next week. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and other senior Cabinet ministers decided to give the Food Security Bill some more time and bring it to the Cabinet for clearance next week after detailed discussion.

But despite objections from Home Minister P Chidambaram, who is understood to have questioned certain clauses in the Judicial Accountability Bill dealing with judges’ social acquaintances, the government decided to clear the Bill to make its stand on the “select group” clear before the Lokpal Bill.

The Judicial Accountability Bill seeks to provide for accountability of judges.

Introduced in the Lok Sabha last year, it was sent to Abhishek Singhvi-led Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel and Law and Justice. Sources said one of the key recommendations of the committee, restraining judges from making unwarranted comments against other constitutional bodies or persons in courts, has been accepted by the government.