Gujarat moves SC against HC order on Lokayukta

The Gujarat government today moved the Supreme Court challenging a high court verdict upholding the appointment of retired judge R A Mehta as the state's Lokayukta.

The Gujarat High Court yesterday upheld Mehta's appointment as the state anti-corruption watchdog by governor Kamla Beniwal on 26 August 2011. For seven years prior to that, the state did not have a Lokayukta.

But the Narendra Modi government questioned the appointment on the ground that the governor made the appointment unilaterally, without consulting the state government.

Upholding the appointment on Wednesday, Justice V M Sahai of the high court sharply criticised chief minister Narendra Modi for playing ''pranks'' that had sparked a ''constitutional mini-crisis'' (See: Blow to Modi as HC upholds Lokayukta appointment). 

Justice Sahai, who was given the task of hearing the challenge against the appointment of the Lokayukta following a split verdict of a two-member bench, said Modi's ''questionable'' conduct of ''stonewalling'' the appointment of Justice Mehta threatened the rule of law.

He said the chief minister's effort to metastasise the procedure for appointment of Lokayukta by issuing the Gujarat Lokayukta (Amendment) Ordinance, 2011, was ''deprave and truculent''.

Holding that ''extraordinary situations demand extraordinary remedies'', he said, ''Open resistance of the council of ministers headed by the chief minister in not accepting the primacy of the opinion of the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court in the matter of appointment of Lokayukta has created a crisis situation.''

There was no good reason to reject the name of Justice Mehta once the objections of the chief minister had been overruled by the Chief Justice, he noted.