Santosh Hegde to stay in Lokpal panel

New Delhi: Justice Santosh Hegde will continue in the drafting committee of the Lokpal panel. This was announced by Kiran Bedi late Saturday evening. In a surprising demand, activist Arvind Kejriwal asked the government to consider nominating a Dalit to the Lokpal Bill panel.Anna Hazare has welcomed Pranab’s statement. Members of the panel will not be affected by malicious remarks,” she said. Earlier Justice Hegde indicated that he may not quit the Lokpal panel after finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s statement that the government was looking forward to enacting a strong anti-corruption legislation.Later, he left the decision to Anna Hazare.”It is a nice gesture on the part of the Chairman(Mukherjee) to issue a statement. He was very fair in his statement so also many others have said that this type of vilification campaign is wrong,” he told reporters here on arrival from Bangalore.Hegde, who felt “hurt” on certain statements made by Congress leader Digvijay Singh and had threatened to quit, said he had a talk with Anna Hazare who told him not to take any “precipitate action” but discuss with him at a meeting this evening.”I am bound by the decision the committee takes to be presided over by Hazare. I was personally hurt at some statements. Now clarifications have been given and the statement has come. I have grievances, I am not carrying the complaint anymore,” he said.He said he had publicly announced that he would resign after consulting his colleagues. To a question, he said if Hazare asked him to vacate, he will quit.Before leaving for Delhi, Hazare told reporters in Pune that the meeting would take a decision on the Hegde issue.Asked if the people’s trust has been dented because of controversies, he said, “No, the people’s trust is not dented by this. If the people did not have trust, there would not have been such a big crowd.”Source: PTI