No Opposition No Reason for Delay? Is it right to appoint the LokPal without opposition? What if lokpal will just work for ruling party?

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday pushed for early appointment of lokpal, rejecting the Centre’s argument that the process for appointment of the ombudsman mandated to check corruption in high places had been delayed because of the absence of a leader of Opposition (LoP) who, under the existing law, ought to be part of the selection committee.

The apex court said appointment of lokpal and its members by the selection panel, without including the LoP, would be perfectly valid under the existing law. Under the relevant rules, for a party to be recognised as “opposition”, it ought to have one-tenth strength of the 542-strong Lok Sabha — a threshold no party could cross in the 2014 elections. The Centre cited this to explain why the appointment of lokpal had been delayed.

It said a bill was pending in Parliament to include the leader of the largest opposition party in the selection panel when there is no LoP. It also said a parliamentary committee had approved inclusion of the leader of the largest Opposition party in the absence of LoP, and argued that the anticorruption watchdog should not be appointed until Parliament passed the bill.

However, the court did not agree. “The Act, as it stands today (without the proposed amendment to include the leader of the largest political party in lokpal selection panel), is an eminently workable piece of legislation and there is no justification to keep enforcement of the Act under suspension till the amendments, as proposed, are carried out,” a bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Naveen Sinha said.

Under the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, which came into force on January 16, 2014, Lokpal was to be selected by a panel comprising the PM, the Chief Justice of India or an SC judge nominated by him, Lok Sabha Speaker, LoP and an eminent jurist to be selected by the first four members of the selection panel.