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Lucknow/Bhopal: With each passing day Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar is proving that he is a lion in the BJP ruled state. With a slew of raids conducted on corrupt government officials which unearthed cash and jewellery to an extent which can shame a king's treasury, the MP Lokayukta has proven that he is a man who is 'really' on a mission to end corruption.

On Thursday, the MP Lokayukta police raided the premises of Bhopal Health Department Director AN Mittal and the department's auditor Ganesh Kirar.

According to reports, the police have recovered around Rs.100 cr worth of wealth. The police found bundles of cash, stacks of gold jewellery and documents showing that Mittal owned lands around 50 acres and two bungalows among other things.

The Lokayukta police team has also recovered Rs.10 lakh from Kirar's residence. Documents seized from his house show that he is the owner of 20 acre land and two homes.

This is not the only achievement of the MP Lokayukta. On May 1, the MP Lokayukta Police had raided houses linked to divisional forest officer (DFO) SK Palshi, an Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer, and recovered Rs.20 lakh in cash and gold worth Rs.40 lakh on that day itself.

The raids were simultaneously conducted at the Ratlam, Mandsaur, Neemuch and Bhopal residences of Palshi.

Now, compare this to the Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta.

Here a Lokayukta nothing more than a pointer who can tell who is wrong but cannot take action against the guilty.

While the MP Lokayukta enjoys extensive powers under the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, the UP Lokayukta can only recommend action in a request to the Chief Minister. This means that the office of the UP Lokayukta is nothing more than a joke if compared to his MP counterpart.

When BSP supremo Mayawati was in power in the state, the Lokayukta recommended action against a few corrupt names. The then chief minister took action only against those, a probe on whom would not have led the authorities to her. This was why she ignored the Lokayukta recommendation for a probe against her blue-eyed-boy Naseemuddin Siddiqui.

What was shocking was that she defended Naseemuddin by saying that since the charges leveled against him did not pertain to his actions as a minister, it was not within the purview of the Lokayukta to initiate any probe against him.

She further went on defining what the "rights" of a Lokayukta were by saying, "The provisions of the UP Lokayukta act entitle the Lokayukta to scrutinise the actions of a minister only where such actions were taken in his capacity as minister."

Although on a two-year extension given to him by the Akhilesh Yadav government, UP Lokayukta Justice NK Mehrotra is a powerless man. Powerless because on May 7, men claiming to be supporters of former UP power minister Ramveer Upadhyay allegedly barged into his office and threatened the staff after being denied some information and files asked by them.
The ruling state government is yet to take action against Naseemuddin Siddiqui. Though the new government had promised taking strict action against corruption, it is yet to happen.

While the MP Lokayukta basks in the glory of victories against corrupt officials (with over 67 raids and around Rs.450 cr recovery), the UP Lokayukta remains a mute spectator dependent on the CM's command.

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