The Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing on a plea by Nagaland government on Monday against the retired chief justice of the Meghalaya High Court, Justice Uma Nath Singh, seeking to take away his powers as the Lokayukta under the Nagaland Lokayukta Act for making “unjust and arbitrary” personal demands.
A three-judge bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian adjourned the hearing on the matter. In an earlier hearing, the CJI-led bench had suggested to the Lokayukta’s lawyer that it is better to give up the post rather than demean himself and the offices that he has held in his career as a former High Court Chief Justice.
The bench had also asked Vikas Singh, Senior Advocate appearing for the former Judge, “When there is no dignity in continuing, why do all this and insist on continuing at any cost?”
The Court was hearing the petition filed by the Nagaland Government that all powers be taken away from the Lokayukta. The state government urged for the removal of Singh, accusing him of various acts of indecent and improper personal demands. The petition stated that Singh continued to work online, although the Chief Secretary did not approve it.
When Singh was about to retire as the Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court in January 2016, he made a demand to the Centre to continue providing Z-category security to its chief justice and Y-category to other judges of the court even after their retirement, citing security threats. The order was jointly issued with Justice T.N. Kumar Singh in response to a petition filed by the registrar general of the high court. Justice T.N. Kumar Singh was also to retire soon.
This was challenged before the Supreme Court by a private petitioner after which the order was overturned.
Thereafter, the Delhi Government announced that Justice Singh would be the chairman of a state human rights commission it was setting up then. However, in February 2019, Singh was appointed the first Lokayukta of Nagaland.
This fulfilled a longstanding demand of civil society groups like ACAUT (Against Corruption and Unabated Taxation) to address alleged rampant corruption within the state machinery.
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