Current Lokpal Bill is a sham: Prashant Bhushan

Advocate Prashant Bhushan.

Even as a key Anna Hazare associate on Thursday dropped hints of a compromise formula to break the Lokpal logjam, his another aide insists that prime minister and judiciary should be under Lokpal.

While Justice Santosh Hegde has said he would try to convince Hazare to keep prime minister and judiciary out of the Lokpal purview if government agreed to other demands, advocate Prashant Bhushan told Headlines Today the government must replace its bill with the Jan Lokpal version.

"The current Lokpal Bill is a fraudulent bill. It is a Promotion of Corruption Bill. We want the government to withdraw the current version and replace it with the Jan Lokpal version," Bhushan told Headlines Today.

Maintaining that the government should recognise the voice of the people, Bhushan said prime minister, judiciary and the entire bureaucracy should be under the purview of the Bill.

He said there is no civilised country in the world where a sitting prime minister is immune to the law (against corruption).

"Serving prime ministers should be included in the Lokpal. We are bringing moral pressure to bear on the government, not holding a gun to its head," Bhushan said, adding, "A corrupt prime minister is the biggest threat to the country."

Bhushan said the prime minister has given a free run to the looters of the exhechquer.

"Manmohan Singh does not make or take money, but he is amoral in various ways. Singh has given a free rein to ministers in his cabinet. He has given them the license to plunder the public exchequer," he said.

Team Anna believes in the supremacy of Parliament but they can't decide in abstract without taking people's view into account, he said, adding the Jan Lokpal should be put to a referendum.