New Delhi, Oct. 27: The Nanavati commission, probing the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, has been given a two-month extension. But the cabinet deferred a decision on the Lokpal bill that seeks to put in place a statutory institution to investigate corruption allegations against even the Prime Minister.

The draft bill is the ninth attempt by governments over the last 36 years to create an ombudsman at the Centre to deal with corruption complaints against ?public functionaries?.

The Administrative Reforms Commission of 1966 had first recommended appointment of a Lokpal. But that was largely aimed at creating a mechanism for redress of public grievances. A bill drafted in 1977 ? the third of nine attempts ? changed the focus of the proposed body to allegations of corruption.

However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may have triggered a debate that is as old as the first Lokpal bill of 1968. Singh had recently suggested that even a person occupying the highest executive post should be brought under its ambit, a suggestion incorporated in the draft that was discussed today.

Singh?s predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee had also made the same point in public but when the NDA cabinet cleared the draft bill, it kept the Prime Minister out of the scope of the Lokpal.

At a recent meeting, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had also backed the move to bring all top functionaries within the ambit of the proposed law and suggested that lawmakers could even bring the office of the President under the Lokpal?s scrutiny.

But officials said it had been decided to keep high constitutional offices like the President outside the scope of the Lokpal.

Official sources said the cabinet held only preliminary discussions on the subject and deferred a decision because of the absence of some senior ministers like Sharad Pawar and Ram Vilas Paswan.

Their absence, however, did not deter the cabinet from taking up other issues like the extension to the Nanavati panel till December 31.