Dimapur, Sep. 15 (EMN): The Nagaland Voluntary Consumers’ Organisation (NVCO) has strongly objected to the writ petition filed by the state government before the Supreme Court seeking removal of the Nagaland Lokayukta on the ground of claiming ‘arbitrary demands’ without first going into the provision for removal.
NVCO has questioned the intention of the state government in going to the apex court with a prayer to let it direct the Lokayukta to assign all the pending matters before him to the Upa-Lokayukta and to prohibit the Lokayukta from exercising his powers and functions as per the Nagaland Lokayukta Act, 2017.
Stating that the powers and functions of Lokayukta and Upa-Lokayukta are totally different, NVCO has objected to let the lone Upa-Lokayukta hold the sole power in assigning all the pending matters before Lokayukta.
“We all are aware that the lone Upa-Lokayukta is someone who has a background of having political party affiliation as he was one of the candidates, who contested in the last/ recent Nagaland state general legislative assembly election on NDPP ticket and got defeated and for which it is not safe to let the present Upa-Lokayukta to run Nagaland Lokayukta,” an update from NVCO stated on Tuesday.
NVCO stated that Section 63 of the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act, 2013, makes provisions for establishments of Lokayukta for the states to inquire into allegations of corruption against certain public functionaries. He said the Lokpal Act envisaged appointment of a Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayukta in states to look into cases of corruption against certain categories of public servants.
“With so much of pressure from civil societies including Acaut Nagaland, PSAN, NVCO, etc and of course finally from the Supreme Court of India’s direction, Nagaland Governor appointed Justice Uma Nath Singh, a retired chief justice of Meghalaya High Court, as the Lokayukta for the state on February 2, 2019,” it stated.
NVCO also pointed out that at the welcoming of Lokayukta in the state, it had asked the state government to allow Lokayukta to work independently without lack of prosecution powers and also to provide sufficient manpower with proper facilities to enable the Lokayukta to work in Nagaland as the ‘most effective and powerful statutory body’ by empowering to probe complaints of abuse of position and corruption against public servants. It went on to state that the office of the state chief minister comes under the ambit of Lokayukta.
The main objective of Lokayukta is to curb the menace of corruption prevailing within the state, it read. It added that when any individual makes a complaint against the ‘public servant’ relating to corruption, mal-administration, favouritism, nepotism etc., the Lokayukta looks into such matters and investigates.
“Lokayukta is a great check on corruption, to bring about transparency in the system, to make state administration machinery citizen friendly.
Lokayukta protects citizen’s right against mal-administration, corruption, delay, inefficiency, non-transparency, abuse of position, improper conduct etc.,” NVCO said adding, “Lokayukta is the representative of legislature, powerful friend of citizens.”
Emphasising on social justice as the need of the hour, it stated that the citizens of the state look up to Lokayukta to work without fear in bringing about social justice to the Naga society.