The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : The task is challenging, says Santosh Hegde

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 19, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

The task is challenging, says Santosh Hegde

Raghava M.

He wants to build public opinion against corruption

N. Santosh Hegde

BANGALORE: The former Supreme Court judge, N. Santosh Hegde, who has been appointed Lokayukta, is serious on building public opinion against corruption. The target group, according to Mr. Hegde, will be the younger generation.

Admitting that the task was challenging, Mr. Hegde said he would continue the work of his predecessor N. Venkatachala. "There are lots of expectations from me due to my predecessor's war against corruption," he said.

In an informal chat with The Hindu, Mr. Hegde, who was in Bangalore on Monday, said he would tackle corruption by involving the student community. He said the younger generation was fed up with the menace. Besides, he proposed to seek the support of senior citizens in his task.

Mr. Hegde maintained that he had been a proactive person all through his legal career. However, everything would be done within the framework of the Act, he noted.

The provisions of the Act would be put to optimum use for the benefit of the public, he said.

If the law was silent on some aspects, he would approach the Government for a remedy, including bringing in amendments, if necessary.

On the much debated suo motu powers to the Lokayukta, Mr. Hegde said he favoured it. There should be no inequality between the Lokayukta and the Upalokayukta as for as their powers were concerned and that he would seek suo motu powers to act at least against certain categories of public servants.

On the proposals to enable the Lokayukta or the Upalokayukta to discharge the functions of one another in the absence of either of the posts and empowering the Lokayukta to launch prosecution without Government sanction, Mr. Hegde said he would talk about that after thoroughly going through the Karnataka Lokayukta Act.

Mr. Hegde who stressed on transparency in administration, said he would declare his assets and liabilities and post the information on the website of the institution.

"We are sitting in a glass house and before pointing fingers at others, we should be clean," he noted. A section of society felt there were black sheep in the Lokayukta set-up, he said and declared that he would cleanse the system if the feeling was found to be true. Mr. Hegde said he would work closely with the Upalokayukta and there would be no cause for differences. The fight against corruption would be a teamwork of the entire institution and it would not be individual-centric.

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