Justice Ananda takes over as Karnataka Upa Lokayukta

BENGALURU: Justice N. Ananda, retired judge of Karnataka High Court, took over as Upa Lokayukta in Bengaluru today. Governor V.R. Vala administered him the oath of office and secrecy.

His appointment comes as a saving grace for the anti-corruption watchdog as the institution has been headless for some time now after the resignation of Lokayukta Justice Bhaskar Rao over allegations of corruption by his son. While his one deputy, Justice Majage retired recently, the other Upa Lokayukta Justice Subhash B Adi has become a victim of a political slugfest between the ruling Congress and the Opposition BJP. The Congress MLAs are demanding his ouster and have moved a motion against him in the Assembly. As a result, he has not been attending office.

Prominent Bengalureans such as Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, AAP leader V Balakrishnan, and former Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde have slammed the Karnataka Government for its attempts to remove Subhash Adi who, they said, had been doing a good job and demonstrated competence.

The office of Justice Rao came under scanner after a government engineer accused his son of demanding Rs 1 crore in return for not raiding him for corruption. Justice Adi ordered a probe into the allegation which uncovered an organised extortion racket operating out of Lokayukta offices. It led to the arrest of Joint Commissioner (PRO) Syed Riyaz and others culminating in the exit of Justice Rao himself.

Meanwhile, the Siddaramaiah government has been pursuing its plans, amid resistance from the opposition BJP, to restructure the Lokayukta institution, and broad-base it with more members.

Justice Hegde had told ET recently that Lokayukta gets more number of complaints from people for maladministration in the government and seeing its intervention than complaints related to corruption.