Goa govt proposes to drop clause from disputed Lokayukta Bill

PANAJI: The Goa government today proposed some amendments to the controversial state Lokayukta Bill, which had been earlier referred back to the Legislative Assembly by Governor B V Wanchoo.

The draft bill, which has been circulated among the members of the legislative assembly, is yet to be tabled.

According to Clause 8 of the Bill, the Lokayukta could penalise a complainant, if the former found (at the time of admission) that the complaint being filed was "false, frivolous and vexatious". However, this clause has been completely deleted in the draft bill.

The government has proposed to scale down to Rs 10,000 to Rs one lakh the penalty amount from Rs one lakh to Rs 10 lakh that was earlier mentioned in the bill. The amount has to be paid if it is found that the complaint is false and vexatious. There was objection to this provision by people who felt that the government was trying to discourage people from filing complaints before the Lokayukta.

In yet another amendment, the state government has also proposed to change the word "deemed rejected" to "deemed accepted". Earlier, the bill mentioned that if the recommendations of Lokayukta are not implemented within three months, then it would be deemed rejected. The RTI activists had raised an objection to this clause.

However, the Chief Minister has maintained that the clause which says that the minister "may" resign in case he is indicted by the Lokayukta, has been retained in the draft bill. The RTI activists had demanded the clause to be changed to "shall" resign, which will make it mandatory for the ministers to step down.

The Right to Information (RTI) activists had raised objections to different clauses in the Goa Lokayukta Bill (First Amendment) 2013, which was earlier passed by the state legislative Assembly.