Bengaluru: The Karnataka Lokayukta Act is “inadequate” to remove a corrupt Lokayukta and needs to be amended for posterity if not for now, said former Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde, who pointed out the lacuna in the Section 6 (1) (2) of the KL Act of 1984.
On the removal of the Lokayukta or the Upalokayukta, Justice Hegde said that the Section is “inoperable” because it has adopted the Judges Inquiry Act, 1968, which refers to the quorum in the Parliament.
“The quorum of the elected representatives, who give the notice for presenting an address to the President praying for the removal of the judge, is very high because it uses the Parliament as a reference. It is a useless section in the KLA and should be amended,” said Justice Hegde.
He also said that the government should hand over the corruption scam in the Lokayukta to the Central Bureau of Investigation, “No inquiry short of a CBI probe will bring out the truth in a scam in which the Lokayukta's son is allegedly involved,” said the former Lokayukta.
The ‘inoperable’ Sec. 6 of the KLA
- Lokayukta or an Upalokayukta shall not be removed from the office except by an order of the Governor passed after an address by each House of the State Legislature supported by a majority of the total membership of the House and by a majority of not less than two thirds of the members of that House present and voting has been presented to the Governor in the same session for such removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.
- The procedure of the presentation of an address and for the investigation and proof of the misbehav iour or incapacity of the Lokayukta or an Upalokayukta under sub section (1) shall be provided in the in relation to the removal of a Judge and accordingly the provisions Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 of that Act shall, mutatis mutandi, apply in relation to the removal of the Lokayukta and Upalokayukta as they apply in relation to the removal of a Judge.
FIR against Ashwin Y., son of Lokayukta Justice Rao, which was registered last week by the Lokayukta police under the Prevention of Corruption Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code for extortion, impersonation and criminal conspiracy cannot be trashed, will have to be investigated.
Sec. 3 of the Judges Inquiry Act on ‘Investigation into misbehaviour or incapacity of judge by committee’ states that in the case of a notice given in the House of People it should not be less than 100 members and in the case of notice given in the Council of States it should not be less than 50 members of that Council.
