Date:02/12/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/12/02/stories/2005120207020400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Involve Lokayukta, Upalokayukta in investigation'

Raghava M.

Corruption cases against government officials

G. Patri Basavana Goud

BANGALORE: Upalokayukta G. Patri Basavana Goud has suggested that the Lokayukta and the Upalokayukta be involved in the investigation of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

In a letter to the Government, the former judge of the Karnataka High Court has said that instead of keeping them out of the investigation, the Lokayukta and the Upalokayukta should have a role as it would give the weight of authority to reports sent to the Government in seeking sanction for prosecution or taking disciplinary action against government officials.

He has expressed his opinion in a letter addressed to Principal Secretary for Home Sudhakar Rao.

The letter is significant in wake of the controversy over the Government rejecting seven of the 58 reports sent seeking sanction to prosecute government officials found to be in possession of assets disproportionate to their know sources of income and those trapped while demanding or accepting bribes.

Assumption

In the letter, Mr. Goud said that till 1998 it had been assumed that the Lokayukta and the Upalokayukta had the power of superintendence over the investigation of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act. It was with that understanding that the then Lokayukta issued an official memorandum to the officers of the Karnataka Lokayukta police under Section 15 (4) of the Lokayukta Act.

This memorandum, he said, directed the Lokayukta police to place the first information report, the evidence collected during the course of investigation, the final investigation report where investigation ends in a charge sheet or the B or C report on closure of the case. But this memorandum was set aside by the Karnataka High Court.

The Division Bench of the High Court said the Lokayukta and the Upalokayukta had no role to play in the investigation of cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The Lokayukta could only ask the police officer to stop the investigation if it hindered the officer in the discharge of his duties as a member the Lokayukta staff under the Karnataka Lokayukta Act.

The decision was upheld by the Supreme Court, Mr. Goud noted.

Thus, it is the Lokayukta police officers who investigate cases and send letters to the Government seeking sanction for prosecution.

Ignorant of the legal position, the common man assumes that everything that these police officers do is attributable to the directions and superintendence of the Lokayukta or the Upalokayukta.

"It is hard to explain to them that we have absolutely no concern under the law with what the police officers do in the matter of investigating into the offences under the P.C. Act," Mr. Goud said.

Both (the Lokayukta and the Upalokayukta) have been silent spectators to several instances of the Government rejecting the Lokayukta police's request for sanction of prosecution and recommendation for placing a government official under suspension.

Mr. Goud has said that that would not be the case if such requests and recommendations from the police wing of the Lokayukta were to be initiated by the Lokayukta or the Upalokayukta, depending upon under whom the civil servant comes. "This will give greater weight to the requests and recommendations and will not be taken lightly as has happened in the cases sent by the Lokayukta police," he said.

That will help in channelling the efforts that the understaffed and ill-equipped Lokayukta police put in in investigating the offences.

Separate organisation

The Government should also consider the setting up of a separate and independent organisation to deal exclusively with offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

"This organisation should not even remotely have any concern with the Lokayukta institution and certainly not prefix the word Lokayukta to its title," he said.

Mr. Goud has requested the Government to considered his suggestions, in consultation with the Law Department, so that the Lokayukta and the Upalokayukta could be involved in the investigation.