Justice Santosh Hegde's decision to quit as Lokayukta is a grim reminder of the state of the affairs in our governments. The BJP government in Karnataka is justifiably facing heat from all quarters of the civil society. But we cannot put only Karnataka government in dock. In other states either the administration is 'clean' or the Lokayukta is not interested in taking his job seriously. The probability of the former proposition being true is 'very low' given India's records in corruption and malpractice. So, it could well be a fact that Lokayuktas are not living upto the expectations of their role as corruption watchdogs in other states. Hence the calm in the corridors of power and feeling of 'all is well' amongst the citizens. Karnataka, I suspect, is not an exception. Justice Hegde chose to spill the beans and we have an 'exposed' BJP government groping for excuses and explanations.
In the meantime, the public can raise a toast to Justice Hegde because his counterparts in other states may well be the people who have simply esconced themselves in this post retirement, super-bureaucratic sort of assignment which nobody (even the media) takes seriously.
Tailpiece:
Like Kafkaesque bureaucracy in other areas of governance, 'grievance redressal' in India is also a bureaucratic jumble of government agencies. The common man is confused as to who will redress their grievance about so many agencies with fancy names: District Magistrate, Panchayats, Ministers, CBI, Police, Anti Corruption Bureau, RTI commissioner, Director of Public Grievances, Ombudsman, Lok Pal, Lokayukta, Vigilance commissioners......(I'm sure the list is long and I have missed out many 'important' grievance redressal agencies of our country)
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