Karnataka was the first state to have a Lokayukta – Late Justice A.D. Kaushal, the former judge of the Supreme Court – way back in 1986 after the then ruling Janata Party enacted the Karnataka Lokayukta Act in 1984 to “improve the standards of public administration, by looking into complaints against the administrative actions, including cases of corruption, favouritism and official indiscipline in administrative machinery.” The state has made history once again, this time for wrong reasons, by keeping the post of the state ombudsman vacant for one full year, since September 19, 2011 after the sixth Lokayukta Justice Shivaraj Patil demitted office following a land controversy.
The Karnataka Lokayukta, which had hit national and international headlines after then Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde cracked the whip on the multi-crore illegal mining mafia and named the serving and former chief ministers, ministers, politicians and bureaucrats in the mining mafia in the July 2011 Lokayukta report on illegal mining, is now defunct with no Lokayukta to head the anti-corruption watchdog and address public grievance.
The post is vacant despite the ruling BJP, in its 2008 poll manifesto, promising strengthening of the Lokayukta institution and suo motu powers to the Lokayukta to take action against corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. “This is the first time since the installation of the Lokayukta that the post has been kept vacant for one full year. The government has no desire to fill the vacancy. The matter is now pending before the Supreme Court. They could have acted earlier and made the appointment. They had appointed my successor before I demitted office. They could have done so immediately after he (Justice Patil) resigned,” said Justice Hegde.
The appointment has been kept on hold after the state filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court against a High Court order, which quashed the appointment of Upa Lokayukta Justice Chandrashekaraiah in April this year. The government, pulled up by the High Court for not appointing the Lokayukta has filed a memo in the court that the Lokayukta’s appointment would depend on the SLP’s outcome, to which the apex court agreed.
Justice Patil, who resigned after a short tenure of 45 days following a land controversy, said the institution of Lokayukta should not be kept vacant and that too for such a long time. “This is not in the public interest,” said Jusitce Patil. Justice Venkatachala said, “I had protested against the resignation of Justice Patil and told them (the government) that accepting his resignation would be a bad move. He resigned following a media campaign on land allotment. The work of the Lokayukta is vast and of very serious nature. Now the people will have to wait for the Supreme Court order.”
Before the state filed the special leave petition in the Supreme Court seeking quashing of Justice Chandrashekhariah’s appointment as Upa Lokayukta, former chief minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda had nominated former chief justice of Kerala Justice S.R. Bannurmath for the post and also wrote to members of the selection committee to nominate names of the shortlisted candidates.
The process came to a halt after Governor H.R. Bhardwaj rejected the candidature of Justice Bannurmath. By the time the incumbent chief minister Jagadish Shettar took over the office, the matter had already reached the apex court.