BJP demands legislation to appoint Lokayukta in J-K

Asserting that corruption can be tackled only if institutions dealing with it are free of government control, the BJP today asked for a legislation to appoint a state Lokayukta besides bringing the JK RTI Act at par with the Centre's Right to Information Act.
Referring to a recent announcement of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to hand over corruption cases against politicians and bureaucrats to the State Vigilance Commission (SVO), national executive member of BJP Jitendra Singh said, "Any long-term drive against corruption can prove effective, only when it starts from the top and when institutions to check corruption are made fully autonomous and independent of government control."

"A legislation should be brought in to appoint a state Lokayukta and instruments against corruption like the state RTI be allowed all powers at par with the central RTI Act," he demanded.
"Evidence-based reports of certain ministers and bureaucrats having overnight made advance speculative purchases of large chunks of land at nominal rates in locations where they were privy to a government plan of a new road or bridge or flyover coming up in near future, should also be included in the ambit of corrupt practices and suitable legislation should be brought in to check it," the senior BJP leader said.

Taking a dig at the National Conference-led coalition government, Singh sarcastically said, "It should not be difficult (for them) to understand the value of granting autonomy to anti-corruption institutions.