Members of the civil society demanding the enactment of the anti-graft law achieved a breakthrough of sorts on Thursday. The government has agreed to their demand of forming a joint committee on Jan Lokpal bill with half the members of the civil society. RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal announced this after meeting HRD and IT minister Kapil Sibal.

This was Sibal's third meeting in two days with the members of 'India against corruption', the group spearheading the passage of Jan Lokpal bill.

On Wednesday, he met Swami Ahnivesh to dicsuss the modalities of the joint committee.

Out of the three points raised in the meetings, consensus could not be reached on rest of the two

The government is yet to take a call on making a civil society member chairman of the committee. It has poroposed the name of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee for the same.

Also, the government could not commit on notifying the said joint committee.

The other key demands of 'India against corruption' on which discussions are yet ot happen, are

1. Working draft of the Lokpal bill should be the one prepared by the civil society

2. From the government side, the joint commitee should include key ministers

3. All decisions taken by the joint commitee should be considred as final

4. The government should come up with a time frame to finish discussions on the bill

The movement ‘Indian against corruption’ has been demanding the passage of Jan Lokpal bill.

There is a subcommittee headed by A K Antony looking into provisions of the bill.

As many as eight versions of the bill have been discussed in the parliament. None of them became a law.

On its part, the civil society has formed ten versions of the bill, which was introduced in  parliament for the first time in 1963.