Recent news reports of investigating officials of the LokAyukta being sacked from their jobs and the termination letter coming over WhatsApp, simply because they had investigated a scam in the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) relating to the construction of the GHADC members hostel at a cost of Rs 6.01 crore from the Special Assistance, Central Plan Scheme 2015-16. Following the investigation 9 former executive members were charge-sheeted besides the sitting NPP MDC, Sanjay Sangma and also a former Principal Secretary of the GHADC. Instead of allowing the LokAyukta to exercise its authority according to its mandate, the State Government unceremoniously removed the officers for doing their appointed duties.
The Meghalaya Lokayukta Act enacted way back in 2014 could only function from November 2018 when retired judge of Guwahati High Court, PK Mushahary was appointed as the first LokAyukta. That it should take four long years for an Act to be implemented is in itself a telling account of how unwilling the political class is for any ombudsman to oversee their acts of omission and commission. The LokAyukta is created to enquire into allegations of corruption against public functionaries and related matters. Hence the LokAyukta as an institution is intended to eradicate all forms of corruption in state government institutions. It would be reasonable therefore to expect that its power to investigate corruption also extends to the district councils.
But how free is the LokAyukta to carry out its mandate when its officials have to be appointed by the Government of the day and they can be removed according to the whims of that Government? It is also a commentary on our polity and society that there has been complete silence on this matter. There has not been a whimper from any political party both from the ruling and opposition apart from feeble noises from the Congress chief Vincent Pala.
It is unclear as to what the Government proposes to do with the chargesheets which have come about after a thorough investigation by senior ranking, albeit retired police officials. Now that a new set of officials have been appointed, will the chargesheet be overturned and the entire enquiry process become null and void? Is this a way of giving a clean chit to the MDCs that have been caught with their hands in the till? What are the facts of the case? The Government has not clarified why it needed to remove the investigating officials and appoint a fresh batch of serving officials. To the observer it would appear that the MDA-2 Government is unwilling to accept that there is any form of corruption under it. In its earlier avatar too the scams were all sought to be buried. An officer who spoke up against the scams in the MeECL was transferred post haste.
Why therefore have a LokAyukta in the first place if the idea is to get a compliant person at the helm? Even Justice Mushahary, the first LokAyukta complained of lack of cooperation from the Government. Corruption and Meghalaya are synonymous and the public have normalised this. The LokAyukta is therefore just an empty shell.