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Sangma, Sorabjee on Constitution review panel

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Attorney-general Soli Sorabjee, former Lok Sabha speaker Purno A Sangma and senior journalist C R Irani figure in the 11-member commission appointed by the government this evening to review the Constitution.

The commission, which will be chaired by former Supreme Court chief justice, M N Venkatachaliah, includes another legal luminary V P Jeevan Reddy.

Former attorney-general K Parthasarathy, former Press Council chairman R S Sarkaria, former Indian ambassador to the United States, Abid Hussain and Mahatma Gandhi's grand-daughter Sumitra Kulkarni are the other members of the panel.

Former Lok Sabha secretary-general Subhash C Kashyap is the member-secretary.

According to sources in the government, the members' names were finalised in consultation with Justice Venkatachaliah who had earlier expressed his desire to have a ''non-partisan, broad-based review panel.''

The government's decision to set up the Constitution review committee had stirred a hornet's nest with opposition and members of the intelligentsia crying foul. They expressed fear that the government intended to change the basic structure of the Constitution and switch over to the presidential form of government.

However, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee later clarified to President K R Narayanan that the government's proposed review of the Constitution would not "touch" its basic structure.

It was indicated that the government had given in to Justice Venkatachalaiah's viewpoint that if the commission was to have credibility, it must have constitutional experts of eminence and stature.

Attorney-general Soli Sorabjee is widely respected at home and abroad as a champion of civil liberties and judicial independence.

Former Lok Sabha speaker Purno Sangma, now a senior leader in the Nationalist Congress Party, also has considerable legal and constitutional experience and is a respected figure across the political spectrum.

Similarly, Sarkaria, a well-known constitutional expert, had headed the Sarkaria Commission which went into Centre-State relations.

Irani, now the chief editor of The Statesman, has championed the cause of press freedom for a long time now.

Parthasarathy, Hussain and Kulkarni will lend their expertise to the commission in its ponderous task.

Kashyap is a well-known constitutional expert who had made his mark as Lok Sabha's secretary-general during Rajiv Gandhi's prime ministership. He is an honorary professor at the Centre for Policy Research.

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