By TCN Special Correspondent,
Ahmedabad: Gujarat high court notice asking the state government why it has not appointed a Lokayukta for the last seven years has come as a tight slap on the face of chief minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party which is supporting Anna Hazare’s movement for a Jan Lokpal at the centre.
The notice was issued on Thursday by a division bench comprising Justices Aqil Qureshi and Sonia Gokani on a petition filed by Bhikhabhia, father of slain RTI activist Amit Jethwa. Jethwa was shot dead outside the high court premises in July 2010.
Citing a provision of the Gujarat Lokayukta Act, 1986, which says that the Lokyukta cannot inquire into the complaints of more than five years old, the petitioner said that since there was no ombudsman in the state since November 2003, it meant that complaints of irregularities and corruption against chief minister and ministers pertaining to actions taken by them before November 2006 could not be entertained and these influential would go scot-free.
The petitioner mentioned that huge tracts of land in coastal areas of Kutch district had been allotted to Adanis and other corporate houses in the last six to seven years without following proper procedures. Going by the provisions in the Gujarat Lokayukta Act, the chief minister and ministers who misused their powers to extend benefits to industrial houses could not be held accountable for it whenever the next Lokyukta was appointed.
The petitioner pointed out that there was no other machinery available to hold ministers and other government functionaries accountable for their omissions and commissions. With no Lokyukta since November 2003, it meant that all the ministers and senior bureaucrats having violated the norms would go scot-free.
Bhikhabhai had filed a similar application in 2010 as well. However, his petition was disposed of by the high court after AAG Tushar Mehta told the court on July 16, 2010, that the state government had begun the process to appoint a Lokayukta. He had assured the court that the Lokayukta would be appointed in three months. But a year has passed since then, there is no Lokyukta in the state.