TThe Supreme Court on Friday directed Chief Secretaries of 11 States to explain the five-year delay in appointment of anti-corruption ombudsman Lokayukta and Uplokayukta.
A Bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi found that several States have not moved a muscle to appoint Lokayuktas despite the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act coming into existence in 2013.
Hearing a petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, the court found that Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh have not appointed Lokpal, Lokayukta or Uplokayukta.
“The Chief Secretaries of the aforesaid 11 States shall inform the court within two weeks as to whether steps have been taken for appointment of Lokyukta/Uplokayukta and if so the stage thereof. The reasons for non appointment of Lokayukta/Uplokayukta in the aforesaid States be also laid before the Court in the aforesaid affidavit(s) to be filed by the Chief Secretaries,” the Bench recorded in its order.
