NEW DELHI: RTI activists Aruna Roy , Shailesh Gandhi , Prashant Bhushan and others have demanded that the Delhi government place the Delhi Lokpal and the Service Delivery Amendment bill in the public domain. In a letter to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal the activists have expressed concern at the lack of transparency and public consultation related to the proposed legislations.

"While we welcome the move of the Delhi government to bring these crucial legislations to the Delhi Assembly for consideration and passage, however, we are deeply concerned to note that the government has not made public the text of either of these two bills. The non-availability of the proposed legislations in the public domain has prevented meaningful debate on the detailed provisions of the bills. Further, there have been no public consultations, wherein comments or suggestions of the people of Delhi who are going to be deeply impacted by the passage of these legislations, have been sought,’’ the letter said.

This manner of legislating important laws undermines people’s democratic right to know and participate in the legislative process and prevents public scrutiny of the provisions of proposed bills, the activists said. "We had hoped that given Aam Adami Party’s electoral promises of participatory governance and Swaraj, the AAP government will provide substantive opportunities for peoples’ participation in drafting legislations,’’ the latter said highlighting that both proposed laws were critical to provide a comprehensive legislative framework in Delhi to tackle corruption and redress grievances of people. The letter was signed by Anjali Bharadwaj, Nikhil Dey, Amrita Johri, Venkatesh Nayak among others.