NEW DELHI: The Allahabad High Court has questioned the Yogi Adityanath government’s treatment of the Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta and posed embarrassing questions to it, asking whether it was attempting to “belittle and humiliate the incumbent of the august office”.

Lokayukta, the statutory watchdog against corruption, is entitled to the same benefits accorded to the chief justice of the state under law. Accordingly, Lokayukta Justice Sanjay Misra was allotted a Type-VI bungalow in January 2016. After BJP came to power in March 2017, the government on December 3 last year issued a notification downgrading the Lokayukta’s residence from Type-VI to Type-V, brushing aside the opinion of the state advocate general who said this would not be legally justifiable.

When the Lokayukta challenged the downgrading, the UP government told the HC that Lokayukta was at par with retired bureaucrats who headed statutory commissions in the state. A bench of Justices Devendra Kumar Arora and Ranjan Roy disapproved the manner in which the state government casually attempted to equate Lokayukta, who by law is at par with the state chief justice, with retired bureaucrats.

The bench took exception to the manner in which the state had discarded the AG’s legally sound opinion. “While the opinion of the advocate general, who is the highest law officer of the state and holds a constitutional post under Article 165 of the Constitution and who does not function under the control of the Legal Remembrancer, may not be binding upon the government as a general rule or principle in every case, it does not mean that it should be discarded or mere whims and or personal predilections contrary to the irrefutable legal position and if it is so done without any legal justification, as in this case, then the bona fides of the decision impugned becomes questionable,” it said.

The HC went on to question the rationale behind downgrading the Lokayukta’s bungalow entitlement. “Is it because of the sensitive nature of the duties performed by the Lokayukta? Is it an attempt to belittle and humiliate the incumbent of the august office? Does it behove the state government to treat the Lokayukta in such a casual and irresponsible manner? We leave these questions to be pondered over by the highest functionaries of the state and to decide for themselves.”

Before parting, the bench struck down the state government’s December 3, 2017, order downgrading Lokayukta’s residential entitlement, disapproved of the estate department’s casual handling of the issue and told the government that it should not have left a sensitive matter relating to Lokayukta to a subordinate officer, who had no clue “about the legal position regarding the office of Lokayukta”.

