| Dr.JP’s Letter to Hon’ble Governor of Andhra Pradesh Posted: 03 Mar 2011 07:17 AM PST 3rd March, 2011
Hyderabad
Hon'ble Rajyapal Shri ESL Narasimhan,
The Governor of Andhra Pradesh,
Raj Bhavan,
Hyderabad.
Esteemed Rajyapal Sri Narasimhan ji,
Sub: Filling of vacancies to the nominated seats AP Legislative Council – need to protect the dignity of the Council – appeal – reg.
As you are aware, vacancies to the nominated seats in the AP Legislative Council are due to be filled shortly.
These vacancies arise in the wider context established by the Supreme Court's landmark judgment, delivered earlier today, addressing the critical issue of appointment of individuals to high offices. Even as this judgment is about the appointment of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC; in Centre for PIL vs. Union of India, WP(C) 255/2010), it rightly emphasizes the fundamental need to protect the integrity of Constitutional bodies, through nomination/appointment of candidates exhibiting the highest standards of expertise, integrity and suitability.
Article 171(5) specifies that the members of Legislative Council to be nominated by the Governor shall consist of persons having special knowledge or practical experience in areas of literature, science, art, cooperative movement and social service. Clearly, the nominations are intended to bring expertise, sobriety, wisdom and credibility to the Upper House, and to add substance and quality to the deliberations.
However, parties in power have often tended to use the nomination process as a mechanism to rehabilitate party members and leaders who could not be allocated Assembly seats or accommodated in other forums. Recently, major functionaries in the ruling party and the State Government have publicly and repeatedly stated their intent to nominate select individuals – based on almost entirely partisan political grounds, to the upcoming vacancies to the nominated seats of the AP Legislative Council. While past party affiliation cannot be a disqualification for nomination, party loyalties evaluated in the matrix of partisan political calculus cannot be the sole or substantive qualification either.
This treatment of Upper House nominations as the private affair of political parties is a travesty of the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Such an approach to nominated seats undermines the high office and Constitutional role of the Governor as Head of the State.
Lok Satta Party therefore urges you to play your Constitutional role and ensure that only experts with known credibility, integrity, special knowledge and practical expertise in literature, science, art, cooperative movement and social service are nominated to the Legislative Council. We are aware that ordinarily, you are bound by the advice of the Council of Ministers in nominating these members. Simultaneously, it is your Constitutional prerogative and duty to advise the Government suitably, and to insist on recommendation of names of worthy experts for such nominations.
With your long experience in public life and your oath of allegiance to the Constitution, we are sure you will uphold the highest democratic traditions in respect of the nomination of members to the Legislative Council, and enrich the quality of public discourse in the Upper House.
Sincerely,
Jayaprakash Narayan
(President, Lok Satta Party)
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| Supreme Court verdict a slap in the Face of PM, Home Minister: Dr. JP (Telugu) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 05:44 AM PST |
| Supreme Court verdict a slap in the Face of PM, Home Minister: Dr. JP Posted: 03 Mar 2011 05:42 AM PST The Lok Satta Party today termed the Supreme Court judgment declaring the appointment of Mr. P. J. Thomas as Central Vigilance Commissioner as a slap in the face of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister.
Welcoming the historic verdict wholeheartedly, Lok Satta Party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan told a media conference the verdict also demonstrated how aberrations in democracy can be corrected peacefully and with dignity with the intervention of the judiciary. Dr. JP congratulated former Chief Election Commissioner J. M. Lyngodoh and the Center for Public Interest Litigation, the petitioners who challenged the appointment.
Party leaders Katari Srinivasa Rao, S. Manorama and K. Gita Murthy took part in the media conference.
Dr. JP recalled that the Lok Satta Party had opposed Mr. Thomas' appointment because he as a top official in the Telecom Ministry had opposed a CBI inquiry into 2 G spectrum allocations – the biggest scam in India's history -- with a view to preventing facts from coming to light. The Prime Minister and the Home Minister brushed aside objections raised by BJP leader, the third member in the appointments committee, and went ahead with appointing a person who opposed investigation in a mega scam to a body which is supposed to eradicate corruption.
Dr. JP accused the rulers of weakening, instead of strengthening the Central Vigilance Commission which Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri constituted within three months of the Santhanam Committee on corruption submitting its report. That appointments to key posts have come up for judicial scrutiny is another welcome development, said Dr. JP.
Dr. JP said that people who lose faith in governments, legislatures and political parties look to the judiciary and other constitutional mechanisms to render them justice. That is why the Lok Satta Party has been silently striving for the creation of a National Judicial Commission with powers to appoint persons of probity and integrity as judges without any political interference and to remove corrupt judges.
However, in the long run constitutional mechanisms cannot be a substitute for effective functioning of legislatures. Members of the legislatures should view them as supreme institutions for discussing subjects ranging from the demand for a Telangana State to the Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal Verdict.
Against the backdrop of the Supreme Court judgment in the appointment of the CVC, Dr. JP has written to Governor ESL Narasimhan suggesting that he nominate competent people irrespective of their party affiliation. (The Governor has to nominate four persons). As per the Constitution, only those known for their social service or for their proficiency in education, science and technology and literature should be nominated. The Council shall not be converted into a political rehabilitation center, he warned.
Replying to a question, he said that all agitations ultimately hurt people. For instance, the non-cooperation movement by Government employees hurts people looking for livelihood under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Movements against freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution are nothing but an assault on democracy, Dr. JP said.
Dr. JP hoped that the Union Government would cancel the 2g spectrum licenses without waiting for the Supreme Court in the case filed by the Lok Satta and others.
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