The Lokayukta deception

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/article2818868.ece

> THE HINDU
>
> 21JAN2012
>
>
> The Lokayukta deception
>
> In an extraordinary judgment that must count among the sharpest
> indictments
> ever handed out to any State government, the Gujarat High Court has upheld
> Governor Kamla Beniwal's appointment of Justice R.A. Mehta as the
> Lokayukta
> over objections by Narendra Modi and his Council of Ministers. The single
> judge bench of Justice V.M. Sahai ruled that, although the Governor was
> otherwise required to act on the aid and advice of the Council of
> Ministers, she had become obliged to exercise her discretionary powers in
> this case, because it fell in the rarest of rare category where a
> "spiteful" Chief Minister and his "brazen" and "irrational" Council of
> Ministers had put democracy in peril by obstructing the appointment of the
> Lokayukta. The Gujarat government has expectedly moved the Supreme Court
> against the judgment. Regardless of the final outcome, what clearly
> emerges
> is the divergence between the Bharatiya Janata Party's strongly argued
> theoretical position in favour of a powerful and independent
> anti-corruption ombudsman, and the wilful disrespect shown to the same
> institution by one of its own Chief Ministers — a man showcased as a model
> chief executive at that.
>
> The Gujarat Lokayukta has been headless since 2003, thanks to a protracted
> battle over the choice of nominee that saw Mr. Modi ranged against the
> Governor and the Chief Justice of the High Court. Mr. Modi not only
> insistently contested the primacy of opinion implicitly granted to the
> Chief Justice by the Gujarat Lokayukta Act, 1986, but remained stuck on a
> single name: Justice J.R. Vora, who figured in the panel initially
> proposed
> by the Chief Justice, but who subsequently rendered himself ineligible by
> virtue of his May 2010 appointment as a director of the Gujarat State
> Judicial Academy. The Chief Minister's intransigence unavoidably led to a
> situation of confrontation with the Chief Justice, who, after factoring in
> the State government's objections to Justice Mehta, concluded that he was
> a
> better choice for the office. Significantly, one of Mr. Modi's objections
> to Mr. Mehta was that he took part in a public hearing critical of the
> Gujarat Government's rehabilitation measures for the victims of the 2002
> anti-Muslim pogrom. The High Court ruling has admittedly raised genuine
> concerns about federalism and copycat activism by other State Governors.
> And yet the BJP cannot easily turn this into a case of Central overreach,
> ignoring Mr. Modi's own disregard of institutional due process. After all,
> who can overlook the ironic coincidence of the BJP joining forces with
> Anna
> Hazare at a time when its own government in Gujarat was giving shape to a
> Lokayukta ordinance that ousted the Chief Justice from the consultation
> process, appointing instead the Chief Minister as the chairperson of the
> selection committee?
>
>
>
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> PRASHANT (A Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace)
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> Ahmedabad - 380052, Gujarat, India
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> India
>
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