The Supreme Court, which was “misled” by the Uttar Pradesh Government to appoint Justice (Retd) Virendra Singh as the State lokayukta, on Thursday recalled its December 16, 2015 order and directed Justice (Retd) Sanjay Mishra to be made the
anti-corruption ombudsman.
The court agreed to review its earlier decision upon learning that Singh was not a consensus candidate of the three-member selection panel comprising the Chief Minister, the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court and the leader of Opposition in the UP Assembly.
In fact, letters exchanged among Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Governor Ram Naik and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav revealed that the Chief Justice opposed Singh’s name owing to his family relations with Shivpal Yadav, the uncle of Akhilesh. This fact was not disclosed to the apex court.
In the absence of consensus, last meeting held by the panel decided to drop Singh’s name. Yet, the final list of five people given to court prominently mentioned Singh’s name on the top.
The apex court had stayed his appointment on coming to learn about the HC Chief Justice’s objection and the matter was sent to the Bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi to remedy its earlier order.
Recalling Singh’s candidature, the Bench of Justices Gogoi and PC Pant said, “In the facts stated above, we are persuaded to hold that our order appointing Justice Virendra Singh (Retd) as lokayukta was on the basis of the statement made on behalf of the State of Uttar Pradesh which now appears to be somewhat inaccurate.” left to decide who is to be the next lokayukta, the Bench had a tough call.
It said, “The picture that emanates from the above narration of facts is hazy, unclear and uncertain and we are left in serious doubt as to whether the constitutional/statutory functionaries or at least two of them had, at all, agreed on any name or names.” Mishra emerged as the common choice figuring in the list supplied by both the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice.
However, the Bench could not but comment on the failure of constitutional functionaries to appoint a State lokayukta. Considering the fact that lokayukta’s appointment was being discussed by the three constitutional functionaries for the past 20 months, the Bench said, “It is unfortunate that constitutional or statutory functionaries, in spite of prolonged and extended meetings, continued to have serious differences on a relatively simple issue i.e. appointment of the lokayukta.”
The Bench asked the State authorities to pass necessary orders required to appoint Mishra as the new lokayukta without delay and send a compliance report to court within a week.