Chennai: Government notifies Lokayukta rules, inquiries to be held in-camera'

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has notified rules under the Lokayukta Act providing for inquiries to be held in-camera and precluding disclosure of the identities of the complainant as well as the public functionary under scrutiny. Predictably, opposition parties and leaders have slammed these provisions and demanded they be scrapped.

Throwing a thick blanket of secrecy over the Lokayukta proceedings, the government said these cannot be disclosed to the media or to the general public. Reacting sharply, the main opposition party DMK alleged that the TN rules for Lokayukta would only end up facilitating corruption rather than curtail it. The rules must be struck down, the DMK said.

Even when the TN Assembly passed the Lokayukta Bill in July, the opposition had dubbed it as "toothless". "Every inquiry shall be conducted in private and in particular the identity of the complainant and of the public functionary affected by the inquiry shall not be disclosed to the public or the press or published in any manner whether before, during or after the inquiry," Section 26 of the rules says.

The rules notified in a state government's gazette recently, however, make it clear that the norm of in-camera proceedings will be "subject to the provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005". The RTI Act promotes transparency and access to information under public authorities and it is not clear which aspects of the Lokayukta inquiry or proceedings will be covered under the transparency law.

Justifiably, DMK president M.K. Stalin has demanded in a tweet that the secrecy provision be rescinded. The institution of Lokayukta envisaged by the government is "without power", he said.