NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government has changed the Lokpal selection rules framed by the UPA government and has made the process more independent by stipulating that a search committee will not be bound by the government’s shortlist for Lokpal members.This will now initiate the process to set up the Lokpal. The Department of Personnel and Training has issued a notification dated 27 August, in which it has now been specified that a 7-member search committee shall prepare a panel of persons to be considered by the selection committee for appointment as the chairperson and members of the Lokpal without any recommendations from the government.The earlier rules notified in January said the search committee will prepare the panel from “amongst the list of persons provided by the central government”. Former Supreme Court judge KT Thomas, who was selected as the chairperson of the search committee by UPA, resigned from his post in March after writing to then PM Manmohan Singh that the search committee was merely expected to endorse the government’s choice for Lokpal.Eminent jurist Fali Nariman had also refused UPA’s offer to be a part of the search committee saying it had no powers to undertake an independent search to find out the most deserving persons for the 9-member Lokpal body. Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi was asked last month by the new government to amend the rules notified by the UPA government. The August 27 notification comes after A-G’s report to DoPT. The SC is also hearing a plea in this regard.The amended rules have removed the earlier provision where the central government was supposed to circulate the vacancies in the Lokpal body to the registrar of the SC and registrars of high courts, chief secretaries of the state governments and secretaries in the departments and ministries of the central government calling for nomination of eligible candidates.It is believed that the new government felt that judges of the SC and HCs, may have reservations in submitting their applications to DoPT given the pre-eminence of their judicial positions. Another old provision, whereby the Centre was to advertise the vacancies to directly invite applications from eligible candidates, has also been junked by NDA government.The earlier rules stipulated that search committee must send at least five names for selection of chairperson of Lokpal and in case of members of Lokpal, send a panel containing at least three times the number of vacancies advertised. The new rules give some flexibility to the committee.