November 29 deadline to name Lokayukta

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday asked the state government to fill all vacancies in the Lokayukta and the State Human Rights Commission by November 29. The court asked the government not to make institutions such as the Lok-ayukta, Human Rights Commission and Infor-mation Commission illusionary in the minds of the people of the state.

This was stated by a division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghav-endra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy that was dealing a public interest litigation challenging the non- appointment of the Lok-ayukta, chairman and members of the Human Rights Commission and Information Commiss-ioners, since 2017.

The bench posed many questions to the government for keeping the posts vacant for two years. “When several petitions have been filed against the state government for delaying the appointments, what is preventing it from taking a step forward,” the bench asked.

The Chief Justice asked that when there was a pool of (retired) judges available, why was the government not appointing the Lok Ayukta and rights commission chairperson.

Advocate General B.S. Prasad submitted that the Lok Ayukta was not appointed as it was a combined institution with Andhra Pradesh. Only by the notification on October 30, 2019, did the provisions of the Telangana Lokayukta (Amendment) Act, 2017 come into force. He said the appointment process was underway. He asssured that the posts will be filled shortly.

Ms Kruthi Kalaga, counsel for the petitioner, objected to this and informed the court that the government had been not taking steps to even make appointments to the human rights commission and the information commission. There was nothing substantial to the submissions of the government, as it had been repeatedly stating that it would fill up the posts shortly.

The court questioned about the vacancies in the District Child Welfare Committees. Justice Chauhan was upset by this and said that due to the state’s failure he would have to face questions from the Supreme Court on the implementation of the Juvenile Justice Act.

Hoping that the Advo-cate General’s assurance regarding the appointments would be realised, the court asked the government to fill up the posts by November 29 and adjourned the hearing.