Thaindian News

Bangalore, Oct 28 (IANS) Karnataka, the first state in India to appoint a Lokayukta (ombudsman), is finding it difficult to pick a new head for the anti-corruption watchdog as its choices are caught in a row over owning more than one house site in Bangalore.

The government has chosen former Kerala high court chief justice S. R. Bannurmath and recommended his name to Governor H.R. Bhardwaj for acceptance.

However, reports have started appearing in the Karnataka media that he owns a site in the highly controversial Karnataka State Judicial Employees Department Employees’ House Building Cooperative Society.

Judges are not employees of the state judicial department and hence his getting around 6,000 sq ft site in the society is being questioned.

Bannurmath has been chosen to succeed Shivaraj V. Patil, a former judge of the Supreme Court, who quit as Karnataka Lokayukta Sep 19, just 47 days after assuming office as he too owned a site in this society.

Patil also acquired “in an auction” one more site in his wife’s name from another housing society though rules bar people from getting a site or flat from a housing society if they own a house or site in that city.

Patil had defended acquiring a site in the judicial department employees housing society saying that he was not the only judge to get a site from the society. Several Supreme Court and high court judges had been allotted sites by the society, he had said while resigning.

The affairs of this society, as also over 100 others in Bangalore and Mysore, about 130 kms from here, are now under the government scanner for various irregularities.

Bannurmath declined to react to the reports while Chief Minister D. V. Sadananda Gowda said: “We have recommended his name and now it is left to the governor (to accept or reject it).”

On the house site controversy, Gowda made a pithy comment: “Who does not have allegations. It is very difficult to spot such a person.”

The chief minister said his government had chosen Bannurmath in consultation with the opposition parties.

The Lokayukta is to appointed after consultation among the state government, the state chief justice, presiding officers of the two houses of the legislature and leaders of the opposition in the two houses.

Leader of Opposition in the assembly Siddaramiah of the Congress told reporters that he would comment only after the government officially informs him of its choice.

However, the government can recommend to the governor its choice even if there is no consensus on the name. In such a situation, it is left to the governor to satisfy himself/herself on the suitability of the choice and decide to accept or reject it.

After Patil quit, the Governor H. R. Bhardwaj had said he preferred a retired Supreme Court judge to be the state’s new Lokayukta.