Former PCC president Niranjan Patnaik has exhorted all Opposition political parties and civil society groups to work towards an effective lokayukta system in Odisha.
He has expressed apprehension that the State Government would take advantage of the lack of coherence in the approach of Opposition political parties and civil society groups by pushing through a weak legislation to hoodwink the public.
Parties and groups have to agree to an “issue-based unity” if Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has to be stopped, he said on Wednesday.
In a related development, Niranjan Patnaik forwarded his letter to the Chief Minister on January 3 by a fresh missive in which he expressed happiness that the State Government has “abandoned the ill-advised move of rushing through such an important law in an unrealistic timeframe of one month and that the Bill would now be presented to the State Assembly for consideration.”
He was the first opposition politician to demand that the proposed Bill be placed in the public domain for a proper discussion on its provisions.
Reiterating the demand that the State Vigilance be brought under the control of the lokayukta, Patnaik said the existing lokpal and lokayukta Act, 1995 also places the
Chief Minister and the other Ministers under the purview of the lokpal and nothing would be gained if the same provision is restated in a new law using a slightly different language and nomenclature.
The Government has a unique opportunity to walk the talk and make the law credible by giving the lokayukta with real teeth in the like manner that the Central Government has done in the lokpal Act, 2013 by placing the CBI under the lokpal. If the lokayukta has no investigating agency under it, hardly could anything be delivered under this proposed institution .
“We have seen how a lokpal with powers only to make recommendations performed since 1995. Do we need more of the sameIJ We do not need a lokayukta if it is to become a ceremonial chair for rehabilitation of retired judges and civil servants. The lokayukta’s recommendations will be ignored by the executive as it happened in the Vedanta land acquisition case” he said.