Thaindian News

New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The Delhi lokayukta (ombudsman) Monday approached the Delhi High Court challenging its order preventing it from inquiring into corruption allegations against three Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers.In an appeal to the division bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Lokayukta Manmohan Sarin asserted that his office was empowered to inquire into corruption complaints against IAS officers.

Acting on the lokayukta’s plea, the bench issued notices to the three IAS officers against whom he had to stop his probe midway following the Nov 22 order of the court’s single-judge bench.

The division bench Monday sought the IAS officers’ replies by March 17.

While holding that the Lokayukta had no jurisdiction to probe into allegations against IAS officers as they enjoyed immunity under the Delhi Lokayukta and Uplokayukta Act (DLUA), Justice S. Muralidhar had earlier declined the plea of the ombudsman to make him a party to the hearing of the petition filed by the IAS officers challenging the probe against them.

The three IAS officers - R.K. Saxena, Chetan B. Sanghi and Ravinder Balwani - had challenged the lokayukta’s decision to enquire into complaints of corruption against them.

The lokayukta decided to probe three separate private complaints received by his office in August 2009 against the IAS officers. The complaints accused them of corruption. The ombudsman had begun the probe in January 2010.

Challenging the single-judge bench’s order, Sarin’s counsel Maninder Singh submitted that the lokayukta wanted the high court to address the issue of its jurisdiction.

Citing a Supreme Court ruling, the senior counsel said: “The high court had earlier made the lokayukta a party in another case. Therefore, it has its jurisdiction to investigate into the corruption charges.”