Thursday, 29 June 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN 

Court directs the govt to appoint Lokayukt within eight weeks

The decision of the Uttarakhand High Court directing the State Government to appoint Lokayukt within eight weeks has put pressure on the Pushkar Singh Dhami government to act on an issue which is on suspended animation for a long period of time. It is pertinent to mention here that the BJP in its pre-election promise in the year 2017 had promised that it will appoint Lokayukt within 100 days of coming to the power.

Assuring zero tolerance on corruption, the government headed by the then chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had brought a ‘Lokayukt Bill’ in the State assembly. The opposition members supported this bill but for unknown reasons the bill was sent to the Select committee of the assembly and from then on the issue has remained in cold storage. The party which had promised to bring Lokayukt within 100 days of coming to power has been sitting idle on the subject for the last six years.

Interestingly the office of the Lokayukt is operational in Dehradun without the appointment of Lokayukt from last ten years and a sum of Rs 30 Crores have been spent on the salaries of the staff and other expenses of the office which is defunct. In this non functional office of Lokayukt appointment of 24 employees is also made.

Hearing public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Gaulapar Haldwani residence Ravi Shankar Joshi, a bench of Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Rakesh Thapliyal expressed surprise at the fact a sum of Rs 29.73 crores have already been spent out of Rs 36.95 crore allotted to the institution of Lokyakut without actually appointing any Lokayukt.  Apart from directing the government to appoint Lokayukt within eight weeks the HC also ordered that no money would be spent from the corpus of the Lokayukt till the appointment of Lokayukt is made. The court has set August 10 as the date of the next hearing.

In its order the court has termed the inactiveness of the government as violation of the section 63 of the Lokpal and Lokayukt act-2013. 

In the PIL the petitioner submitted that in the States such as Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh action against corruption is being taken by the Lokayukt but in absence of this institution, cases of corruption are increasing in the State and petty issues are also coming to the court.