Supreme Court invokes constitutional powers, appoints UP Lokayukta

Invoking its constitutional powers, the Supreme Court today appointed a former high court judge Justice Virendra Singh as Uttar Pradesh’s Lokayukta after the state government failed to comply with its directives.

The apex court while making the appointment that came as an embarrassment to the SP government also expressed its disapproval over the “failure” of constitutional functionaries to comply with the orders of the highest court of the land.

The UP government failed to meet the Supreme Court deadline to appoint Lokayukta even after two rounds of marathon talks, which failed to come up with a consensus name.

After a five-hour long meeting of three-member selection committee that ended around on Tuesday night failed to arrive at a conclusion, talks resumed this morning at the residence of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow.

But even that meeting, lasting two hours, failed to come up with a name despite Supreme Court order that the state government should submit a compliance report by today.

The apex court ordered the appointment of Virendra Singh, a former judge of the Allahabad High Court, after it examined 5 short-listed names for the post of the state’s ombudsman and asked the state government to file a report by December 20 indicating compliance of its order.

The bench passed the order while hearing the pleas filed by Mahendra Kumar Jain and lawyer Radhakant Tripathi.