NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday refused to commit to Supreme Court to any time frame within which Lokpal could be appointed but said that high power selection committee headed by Prime Minister would meet on July 19 to decide on setting up of search panel to shortlist potential names for the post.

Appearing before a bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, attorney general K K Venugopal said that the final appointment of Lokpal would take time as the selection committee would have to decide to constitute seven-member search panel which would lay down its own procedure for selecting names and time limitation for the panel would be fixed only after laying down of guidelines for evaluating persons for the purpose of empanelment.

“The search committee will have to lay down its procedure. After that the selection committee will fix the limitation of time within which the search committee will recommend the panel of names for selecting the Chairman and members of Lokpal,” the AG told the bench. He said that it might not be feasible for selection committee to complete its deliberations in one sitting.

The bench, also comprising justices R Banumathi and Navin Sinha, however, expressed hope that the selection committee would finalise the names for constituting search panel on July 19 itself. It asked the Centre to file a report on the decision taken by the committee by July 23 when it will take up the case for further hearing.

“As the meeting of the selection committee is scheduled to be held on July 19, we refrain from making any observations and passing any directions, save and except, to express our optimism that the search committee will be duly constituted in the said meeting in the course of which the selection committee would also consider the question of laying down a particular time frame within which the search committee is to complete its deliberations and make its recommendations to the selection committee,” the bench said.

As the Centre has failed to appoint Lokpal in the last four years after the law was passed, SC had on July 2 directed the government to give a time frame within which the anti-graft ombudsman body would be made functional.

The court passed the order while hearing a petition filed by NGO Common Cause seeking contempt proceedings against the Centre for not complying with its verdict of April 27 last year for appointing Lokpal. It contended that the centre was dragging its feet on the appointment of Lokpal as it did nothing in the last four years after the Act was passed. The apex court in its verdict had said there was no justification to keep the enforcement of the Lokpal Act suspended till the proposed amendments, including on the issue of the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, were cleared by Parliament.

