French president and Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta

Rakesh Dixit

There are enough indications now that Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta PP Naolekar is going to enjoy a tenure that only French President was privileged to enjoy till 2000—seven years  

President of the French Republic term was reduced from seven to five years and; the first election to a shorter term was held in 2002. President Chirac was first elected in 1995 and again in 2002. Justice Naolekar is all set to emulate last seven-year term record of French president Chirac.

Last week the state government indicated that Justice (rtd) P P Naolekar would continue as Lokayukta aftercompletion of his six-year term on June 28. The government told the office of accountant general (AG) to continue his emoluments and privileges beyond the month of June as well.

The state government had amended the MP Lokayukta and Up Lokayukta Act, 1981 in August last year to enable the incumbent to continue in office even on completion of his term.

Now that the government has brazenly obliged the Lokayukta, public-spirited individuals and NGOs are expecting the Ombudsman to be ashamed enough of the munificence to demit the office. That does not seem to be happening though.

Chorus building up

A chorus is building up emerging against the likely continuation of justice (retired) PP Naolekar as Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta.

A former minister, a retired district judge, a retired IPS officer are among those who have asked Naolekar to not accept an extension of service after his tenure of six years, and demit office gracefully.

Congress leader and former minister Dr Govind Singh has written a letter to Naolekar, stating that nowhere in the country there is provision for extension of tenure after retirement, and hence he should leave his office on the day he completes six years in the post. 

Retired district judge RS Baghel has advised Naolekar to maintain highest standards of personal as well as institutional integrity and don't succumb to any allurement (extension of tenure) from the state government.

Ajay Dubey, a member of Transparency International, has also urged the Lokayukta to retire on June 28.  Dubey has asked him to retire on the due day and recommend to the government to initiate the process of appointing the next lokayukta.

Retired IPS officer and former director general of special police establishment,  Lokayukta, Arun Gurtoo said : "In these days of increasing corruption and abuse of authority, any visible loss of impartiality or dignity of this organisation shall shake the confidence of the people in the state government as well as in the ability of the organisation to deliver."

Senior Congress leader Satyadev Katare, who had asked the chief minister to initiate process for appointment of new Lokayukta, said, “I condemn the decision. It’s not justified and I express strong disapproval of the decision.”

The office of the lokayukta has come under scrutiny in recent times. While in Gujarat, the then chief minister Narendra Modi remained dead against appointing a Lokayukta all through his 13-year tenure, in Madhya Pradesh (MP), Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan seems to be enamored with his lokayukta, Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar.

In fact, so happy is the cabinet with Naolekar that on August 13, it extended his term by a year, a good 10 months before his retirement. Even the deputy lokayukta will continue in his post after retirement if no successor is appointed, subject to a maximum period of one year. The term of the lokayukta is six years in MP, unlike five years in other states. With another year’s extension, Naolekar will stay in office till the age of 72. So what makes this head of the anti-graft institution so special?

SUSPICIOUS OPPOSITION

While state parliamentary affairs minister Narottam Mishra defended the amendment in Section 5 of the MP Lokayukta and deputy Lokayukta Act-1981, saying it was done to ensure continuity in the posts, the Congress is suspicious about the motive and timing of the cabinet decision.

The leader of the opposition, Satyadev Katare, attributes Chouhan’s move to “ambition to bring all constitutional bodies under his control”. “Lokayukta PP Naolekar is not retiring immediately as his term ends in June 2015. What was the compulsion to increase the tenure when the government is in a majority and can take such a decision anytime?” Katare asks, wondering if the government has no trust in judges, who are scheduled to retire soon and may become eligible for the post.

Lokayukta PP Naolekar has not pursued corruption cases in true earnestness

Upset that the ruling BJP government in the state did not seek his prior consent before taking the decision, he registered his protest in a letter to governor Ram Naresh Yadav. Incidentally, the 1981 Act makes it mandatory for the government to consult the leader of the opposition, chief minister and chief justice of the high court at the time of the lokayukta’s appointment.

This gives credence to the view that there is more to this issue than meets the eye. The alleged bonhomie between Chouhan and Naolekar has been hotly debated in the state assembly ever since Naolekar, a retired Supreme Court judge, assumed the lokayukta office in June 2009. Last year, fiery Congress MLA Kalpana Parulekar even stormed into the assembly carrying a placard, which alleged that Naolekar was an RSS agent.

TAINTED LOKAYUKTA?

What has made the opposition see red is the lokayukta’s alleged kid-gloves treatment towards tainted ministers and bureaucrats for years. The high court even sent a notice to the lokayukta on September 11 based on a PIL, asking him to submit a report by October 6, explaining on what grounds bureaucrats and ministers were let off from alleged corruption charges against them.
Petitioner P Najpandey claimed that 11 ministers in Chouhan’s cabinet, apart from at least 90 civil servants, were under the lokayukta’s scanner. Some of the complaints were pending for seven or more years, but there was no forward movement as far as prosecution goes.

Incidentally, the lokayukta had disclosed ahead of the assembly election in MP last year that it had closed the probe in eight cases of alleged irregularities against former and present ministers, in reply to RTI activist Ajay Dubey’s petition. However, the loka-yukta maintained that the probes were closed for want of solid proof against the accused. “If we get a complaint backed by solid proof and evidence, we will not spare time in raiding or catching a powerful and influential person, be it a powerful politician,” Naolekar had claimed recently to an English magazine.

MISUSING POSITION

But the opposition is not impressed with his defense. His clean chit to Chouhan and his wife, Sadhna Singh, in the dumper case four years ago still rankles the Congress leadership. In this case, Chouhan was accused of misusing his official position to rent out dumper trucks to an industrial house as a quid pro quo for allotting a mining lease. Taking cognizance of the lokayukta’s closure report, a special court had then given a clean chit to the CM.

So forceful was the lokayukta’s clean chit that special judge RPS Chauhan was moved to observe: “That Shivraj Singh Chouhan should indulge in a business of petty corruption is not prima facie acceptable because he, as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, could siphon off hundreds of crores of rupees without directly bringing his relatives in the picture. Even otherwise, as soon as he came to know of this business (of petty corruption), he closed it down, which only shows his (good) character.”

“Lokayukta PP Naolekar is not retiring immediately as his term ends in June 2015. What was the compulsion… when the  government is in a majority and can take such a decision anytime?” 
—Satyadev Katare, leader of the opposition, MP Assembly

Around this time, allegations also flew thick and fast about the government’s benevolence towards Siddharth Naolekar, son of the lokayukta. Siddharth is an Indore-based industrialist and considered close to powerful minister Kailash Vijayvargiya. Last year, Siddharth’s name figured in an FIR along with five others in a case of alleged cheating by a real estate firm. The MP High Court, however, stayed the operation on the orders of Indore Junior Magistrate First Class (JMFC) court.

Another allegation against the lokayukta was that he was not adequately proactive in compelling the government to give assent for prosecution of the officers facing probes. More than 100 such requests by the loka-yukta, including around 40 made in 2013, are pending with the state, despite the apex court’s direction for clearing such requests in three months. For example, the state government nod is awaited for prosecuting Indore health officer, Dr Rajesh Kothari, even a year after multiple lokayukta raids unearthed disproportionate assets to the tune of `55 crore from his house.

BLAME IT ON ACT

Worse, Section 197 of the code of criminal procedure, introduced by the state government, mandates sanction before prosecution of public servants for criminal offences. So, the anti-corruption watchdog has to wait for sanctions before prosecution of corrupt babus. Naolekar blames the unresponsiveness of the state government to the lack of teeth in the present lokayukta act. “There is a need to make some amendments in the… Act to give more teeth to it. The Act is about two decades old and needs to be amended,” he argues.

Around a year after assuming office, the lokayukta had remarked that corruption of lower rung officials like patwaris was more dangerous than of those in high places. His institution seems to have endorsed this statement in earnest as it has often trapped petty officials. According to official sources, in the last five years, as many as 146 cases related to disproportionate assets (DA) were registered, involving proceeds worth `303 crore between June 29, 2009 and April 30, 2014. Further, the lokayukta has registered 891 trap cases, in which government officials were allegedly found demanding and receiving bribe from people during the same period. Between February 1982 and March 2013, the lokayukta registered 704 cases and seized properties worth Rs. 417.27 crore, allegedly acquired through corrupt means. MP punished 4,280 gazetted and non-gazetted officials during the period on the recommendations of the lokayukta for their alleged involvement in corruption.

The same alacrity should be shown against those in high places too.

How police defamed a dead journalist

How Madhya Pradesh police tried to defame a dead journalist and a ‘fearless crusader’

Days after Sandeep Kothari’s burnt body was discovered, the police raked up the old cases against him. That, however, was only half the truth.

Rakesh Dixit  · Today · 03:30 pm

Photo Credit: PEN International

Sandeep Kothari’s sister Sandhya is distraught. When he was alive the journalist faced a rash of criminal cases over 10 years which included charges of extortion and sexual assault. Even after his death the Madhya Pradesh police hasn’t let up the campaign to sully him – it publicly branded him a serial offender. “I pleaded with him so many times – leave journalism or you will die,” said Sandhya.

Kothari, 40, was found dead near a railway track in the Butibori forest of Wardha district in Maharashtra on June 20. He was abducted the previous day from Katangi tehsil in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district, driven to Maharashtra and then incinerated. The police has arrested two men – Vishal Tandi and Brijesh Duhrawal – and are searching for the main accused, Rakesh Narswani, a manganese mining kingpin, who is on the run.

Days after the body’s discovery, the Madhya Pradesh police raked up the old charges against Kothari.

“Kothari was a hawker who used to write dispatches for Nayi Duniya [a reputed multi-edition daily of Madhya Pradesh] till 2012,” Balghat additional superintendent of police Neeraj Soni told media-persons. “There are several cases of blackmailing, extortion, rape against him. He was also externed from the district. The arrested and the absconder were in fact his associates in many cases and their friendship had turned into rivalry. The three had allegedly implicated him in a rape case in which he was discharged. The enmity could be due to the case.”

In Katangi police station, in Balaghat district, Sandeep Kothari is history-sheeter number 15.

Police-mafia nexus

However, the account painted by Neeraj Soni is incomplete. Of the 25 cases registered against him in the past decade, Kothari was convicted in one – and even there he was acquitted by a higher court. In another case he was let off after paying a fine of Rs 500. In four cases where the police claimed to have no information about the verdicts, the judgements were in Kothari’s favour.

Furthermore, Kothari was not a former journalist. After he left Nayi Duniya, he began editing a small daily from Katangi. At both newspapers, he assiduously wrote reports on the local mining mafia and chit fund companies, exposing their crimes, said Kothari’s brother Rahul.

Soni’s account is also at variance with the memories of Kothari’s family and, significantly, the testimonies of his colleagues in the police force.

Kothari was no friend of those now accused of his murder. Vishal Tandi ran a chit fund company, and Brijesh Duhrawal was a realtor-builder. The suspect on the run, Rakesh Narswani, was a notorious mining kingpin in Katangi. Since Kothari exposed their illegal trades, Rahul maintained, they closed ranks to browbeat the journalist by filing a series of cases against him.

Some top police officers too remember Kothari standing up to the police-mafia nexus.

Possible murder motives

According to Rahul, the three men accused of killing his brother were directly or indirectly involved in all the cases registered against him. Kothari was acquitted in 21 cases. Of the remaining four, two were registered recently and two were pending in the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

The complainant in the three rape cases against Kothari was the same, said Rahul. In one of these Kothari was discharged. No charge-sheet was filed in the second for lack of evidence. And the third was dismissed when the complainant confessed in court last December that she falsely implicated the scribe at the behest of the three murder accused. After his acquittal, Kothari slapped defamation notices on June 10 against the three men and 24 others who provided false depositions.

Since then the three men had been pressuring Kothari for compromise, Rahul said. His refusal to cave in is suspected to be a probable cause for the murder. Another possible motive, according to Balaghat sub-divisional officer (police) JN Markam, could be the enmity over a case of illegal mining that Kothari had recently filed in a local court against the three men. The police suspect the journalist was perhaps murdered because he refused to withdraw the matter.

The Balaghat police has mentioned these possible motives in a report to the Bhopal headquarters.

An officer, who has read that Balaghat police report, said the journalist paid for his writings with his life. He requested anonymity for fear of possible action against the Katangi police, and refused to discuss the case further "as a special investigation team has been formed to probe the murder”.

Fighting over minerals

Sitting on the border of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, Balaghat district is famous for its rich deposits of precious minerals, particularly manganese and bauxite. These minerals have spawned illegal mining whose allure often causes bitter rivalry among mafiosi for dominance in the predominantly tribal area.

The district is also riddled with Naxalite offshoots known as Dalams who extort commission from mining contractors. A large number of policemen are alleged to be part of the extortion racket that is also said to involve politicians. Local journalists are prone to be co-opted into the racket either out of fear of the nexus or inducements. Sandeep Kothari was an honourable exception, said people who knew him well.

Even Neeraj Soni, who was quick to dismiss the journalist as a blackmailer, conceded that Kothari would lodge complaints against the mining mafia with painstaking documentation.

The main opposition party in Madhya Pradesh, Congress, is all set to take up the killing in the monsoon session of the assembly, slated to start in July. Meanwhile, state home minister Babulal Gaur has promised that the special investigation team set up to probe the murder will be fair and comprehensive.

The SIT probe was finally announced after Kothari’s family members refused to trust an investigation by the Katangi police. They accepted Kothari’s body for the last rites on June 22, following an assurance from the police that an independent inquiry will be conducted under deputy superintendent of police JN Markam.

The family stresses the police’s role in the journalist’s relentless harassment which ended with his murder. Kothari’s father Prakash blames the police for conniving with the rich and powerful to get rid of his son. “You don’t know how a father feels when his young son passes away.”