New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted four more weeks to the Centre to explain the steps being taken to appoint a Lokpal after attorney-general K.K. Venugopal said the selection committee met on March 1 and decided to first fill the vacancy caused by the death of jurist P.P. Rao.

Rao, who was part of the high-powered selection panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, passed away last year.

The selection committee for the appointment of the Lokpal, the country's first anti-corruption ombudsman, has eight members - the Prime Minister, Lok Sabha Speaker, leader of the Opposition, the Chief Justice of India and one eminent jurist to be nominated by the other three members of the panel.

When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, Venugopal said that pursuant to the earlier orders passed by the apex court, the selection committee met on March 1 and decided to first fill up the vacancy caused by Rao's death.

"Your Lordships, the selection committee took note of various orders passed by this court and as such it was decided to fill the vacant post of the eminent jurist caused by the passing away of Shri P.P Rao.... Only then we can proceed with the appointment," the attorney-general told a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R. Banumathi.

Asked by Justice Gogoi about the time that could be taken to fill the vacancy, Venugopal said "at the earliest", but did not specify any timeframe.

The attorney-general also did not refer to the boycott of the March 1 meeting by Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the Congress Legislature Party in the Lok Sabha.

Kharge skipped the meeting citing the "special invitee" status accorded to him for participation in the meeting.

As the Lok Sabha has no leader of the Opposition, the NDA government had been fighting shy of amending the rules to have the leader of the single-largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha in the selection panel despite such a suggestion being made by the Supreme Court.

On March 1, Kharge was invited to the meeting as a "special invitee", which the Congress leader alleged was a deliberate attempt to stifle the voice of the Opposition.

The bench was dealing with a contempt application moved by Common Cause against department of personnel and training secretary Ajay Mittal for the delay in the appointment of the Lokpal despite an apex court directive last April to expedite the process.