For Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Lokpal is not a magic wand to check corruption. But, chief minister Yeddyurappa sees a magical possibility of using Lokayukta to cover-up his corruption.
Santhosh Hegde will demit office as the Lokayukta on 2 August, but there are no signs of procedure taking off to find a person to replace him. Given a chance Yeddyurappa wants his man, preferably a fellow Lingayat, there. So the names like S R Bannurmatt, and Shivaraj Patil are doing rounds. Projection of RV Ravindran’s candidature is just a hogwash. A non-Lingayat (Ravindran is from Vaishya community) in the race is due to retire as a Supreme Court Judge in October and he is unlikely to take baton from Hegde in August.
Yeddyurappa is not so dumb to ignore the fact that both the positions of Lokayukata and Upa Lokayukta occupied by Lingayat would be an eyesore. Best bet for him to keep Lokayukta post vacant for a period convenient for him and allow Upa Lokayukat S B Majjigi to rule the roost. Majjigi is his handpicked man and so naïve that the CM can rest assure.
This is the exact design in Yeddyurappa’s mind and we can not expect a new man as Lokayukata for now.
And can you expect a wily politician stopping at that?
If you don’t have a proper control over Registrar, you can’t regulate the Lokayukta effectively. The Registrar position is an important one. As an administrative head he is the one who supervises the scrutiny and registration of complaints, and sending reports to the competent authority.
Not for no reason such a significant post is vacant for months now. The chief minister has set out to bring a revolutionary change in the Lokayukta system and that is bringing in an IAS officer as the registrar otherwise the position is judiciary and a district magistrate or a person of equivalent rank is eligible. Yeddyurappa wants a babu there and the attempts of amending the rules are underway.
Now you could have got the picture. A chief minister, who is immersed neck deep in corruption charges, wants a corruption watch dog there which can bark but not bite.
The hitch is in the very system. The Karnataka Lokayukta Act empowers the chief minister to select a candidate for Lokayukta in consultation with the chief justice of the high court, presiding officers of legislative assembly and legislative council, and opposition leaders of the respective houses.
If a wolf is given a mandate to look for a thing to herd the sheep, what you can expect?
Unless effective change in the system is brought in there will be no end to the farce we are witnessing. By the time we wake up to this, can any one give guarantee that the state is not bankrupt?
Can’t Anna Hazare see a case in Karnataka?
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