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Goa is planning a Lok Pal bill by December, while bringing the chief minister under its purview.
"I call it an accountability bill, making all public men accountable," said Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.
The proposed bill, pending before the law department for comments, even entrusts powers to prosecute the guilty rather than only prove public men guilty.
The Bharatiya Janata Party government wants to repeal the Public Men's Corruption (Investigations & Inquiries) Act, passed in 1988, replacing it with the Lok Pal legislation.
The competency of the commission, set up in 1997 to implement the act, has come under criticism as it has proved to be a ineffective in arresting corruption in public life.
It caters to not only top government and semi-government officials, but also the chief minister, ministers, legislators, village panchas and councillors, board members of corporations, authorities and co-operative societies, office-bearers of political parties and trade unions and even authorities controlling university and government-aided educational institutions.
"The act in its present form does not have any teeth and has not helped cleanse the body politic," stated findings of the House committee headed by former chief minister Dr Wilfred de Souza.
As per the findings of the ad hoc committee on home, the commission examined 28 complaints since 1997, but could recommend only one case for recovery of money and criminal proceedings and three cases for recovery of money.
While many public men have been exempted from filing property returns, the committee notes that the government has not responded to innumerable inadequacies pointed out by the commission in the act.
"In fact, the act does not debar convicts from contesting local, assembly or parliamentary elections," stated de Souza's report. His three-member committee has mooted disbanding of the commission and repealing of the act.
Though the House committee also felt that investigating and other statutory machinery were more than enough to take care of such complaints, Parrikar felt otherwise.
The real solution to the problem is to replace the act with a more stringent act, rather than go back to the old ineffective system, stated the chief minister.
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