Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday said that his government will soon initiate the process to appoint Lokaykta for the State.
Goa Lokayukta Justice (retd) Sudarshen Reddy had resigned within seven months of taking over on October 15 last year, citing personal reasons.
Mr. Parrikar said that around dozen judges from higher judiciary are set to retire in the near future. Goa, according to the Lokayukta Act, should either have a retired Chief Justice of a High Court or a retired judge of the Supreme Court as its Lokayukta.
According to sources in the Lokayukta office, nearly a dozen complaints are pending in the Lokayukta Secretariat.
Justice Reddy had received a total 16 complaints during his seven month tenure, of which he disposed of some of the cases after preliminary inquiry while other complaints remained pending. The complaints included cases of illegal mining referred to him by the State government. The Lokayukta was also handed over the probe of “recruitment scams” in the previous Congress government’s tenure.
Mr. Parrikar, who had promised "zero tolerance to corruption" immediately after coming to power in March 2012, had to appoint Lokayukta nearly after a year following civil society pressure to set up an autonomous mechanism to probe allegations of corruption.
"e-auction not a permanent solution"
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday said that he will soon write to the >Supreme Court bringing to its notice that e-auction by government would not be a long term-permanent solution to the mining in Goa.
The State has been presently conducting e-auctions of the already extracted ore stacked in different places, under the supervision of a Supreme Court monitoring committee.
Speaking informally to presspersons after meeting a group of agitators who were suspecting hanky panky in transportation of ore sold in e-auction and presently being transported from their village of Caurem in south Goa, Mr. Parrikar said that there were so many aspects of business involved in mining that need to be attended to, which it was practically difficult for a small State like Goa. “I am clear that government is not good in business,” he said.
In reply to a question, he admitted that the State government had received a letter from the Centre inviting it for a meeting in New Delhi to discuss its proposal that e-auction should be a permanent mechanism for the mining sector.
“When Supreme Court has, in its recent order assigned the entire task of handling the mining to the State government, I would only ask them(Centre) who are they to tell the State what to do. That is what I would ask them”, Mr. Parrikar said.
