President Pranab Mukherjee gives nod to HP Lokayukta bill

Though, Himachal Pradesh is one of the first few states in India,which had established Lokayukta institution in 1983 but the state government had chosen to give more teeth to the institution — first time granting powers of contempt of the court.

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Senior officials in the government on Friday confirmed to the Indian Express that President has given his assent to the legislation, which will be significant to check corruption and investigate complaints of misuse of the powers by the public functionaries. The new Act will replace existing the law.

All public servants, including Chief Minister and cabinet ministers have been brought under the ambit of Lokayukta.

During the previous BJP regime, Prem Kumar Dhumal — the then Chief Minister had proposed setting-up of a multi-member Lokayukta but the centre did not grant approval to the legislation. Even the Congress, on return to power, proposed a multi-member body but a select committee of the Vidhan Sabha headed by Revenue Minister Kaul Singh Thakur replaced it with a single member institution but with powers of contempt of court.

“The Lokayukta will constitute an inquiry wing headed by the director of inquiry for conducting preliminary probe into any offence committed by a public servant,” the bill reads.

Recently Governor Kalyan Singh had raised objections to the bill’s provision about power of contempt of court and few of its provisions overlapping the Central law of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) but the Centre did not accept his findings.

The state Lokayukta is currently headed by Justice (Rtd) L S Panta, a retired SC judge,who also briefly headed National Green Tribunal before he quit to take up assignment in the home state—where he had also served as High Court judge.