The High Court of Karnataka has directed the State government to fill one of the two posts of Upalokayukta, which became vacant in December last year, as soon as possible.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice V. Srishananda issued the direction while disposing of a PIL petition filed by Umapathi.S.
The petition was filed in March 2019 when one of the two posts of Upalokayukta became vacant and the government had delayed the process of filling it up. Subsequently, the government in November 2019 appointed B.S. Patil, a retired judge of the High Court, to that post during the pendency of the petition.
Meanwhile, another post of Upalokayukta became vacant on December 14, 2020, and the government last week sought some reasonable time to fill up the post as it had become vacant a month ago. It pointed out that it had to follow the process of consultations with the Chief Justice of the High Court, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and Chairman of the Legislative Council to fill up the post.
Following this, the Bench disposed of the petition while directing the government “to fill up the post as expeditiously as possible”.
