Bengaluru: Though there is no violation of the Lokayukta Act, the appointment of IAS officer P.C. Jaffer has left the Law Department red-faced, as the department was clueless of the appointment till the official order was released.
While Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra did not want to comment, senior officials in his department said that at least the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) should have consulted the department as a 22-year-old precedent was being broken. So far, only judicial officers were being appointed as Registrars of Lokayukta.
Mr Jayachandra said that so far, the Law Department was not consulted on the appointments to the Lokayukta. “There is a provision in the Lokayukta Act itself that IAS officer can be appointed as the Registrar. But so far, it was not done. Till the IAS transfer orders were issued by the DPAR, even I was not aware of the appointment. But it is prerogative of the government to make IAS transfers, which all the ministers will not be aware of,” he said.
But a senior official in the Law Department said that the government had set a bad precedent by appointing an IAS officer as Lokayukta Registrar.
Besides, the Lokayukta is probing cases against many IAS officers. There are over 800 cases against IAS officers, including one against present Chief Secretary Koushik Mukherjee. Earlier, there was a case against even Mr Jaffer, which was subsequently closed.
“Already, there are problems in the Lokayukta and general perception is that the government is trying to weaken the institution. What was the hurry to break the precedent at this juncture? No one knows from which quarter the proposal has gone, whether it was the Chief Minister or Chief Secretary… This leaves many questions unanswered,” he said.
