A one-day state level awareness programme was held on Saturday at the auditorium of the High Court of Manipur in Imphal.
Law and legislative affairs minister L Jayantakumar and chairman Justice T Nandakumar Singh of Lokayukta Manipur were the chief guest and functional president.
Addressing the awareness programme, minister Jayantakumar said that the present two and half years old government, amidst so many crisis, has now introduced the long awaited ‘Lokayukta’, an anti-corruption ombudsman organization.
Lokayukta or Ombudsman is a public officer/institution whose function is to investigate the grievances raised by the citizens regarding mal-administration of the government authorities.
Through this institution the citizens have the legitimate power to lodge complaint against the concerned authority if there are gross lapses in the functioning of the public administration.
That is this Institution can be empowered to investigate the cases of corruption in any form not only against the government officials but also against the judges and the ministers irrespective of their ranks and file, the minister added.
Stating that ombudsman is something like a tool or device to make democracy more meaningful and free from any stigma, he said usually, we find that ordinary people are the victim of the negligence of public administration or wrong policy of the government or corruption of the government officials and the selected members of the Assembly running the Government.
To maintain the true spirit of democracy, there ought to be an Institution whose main function shall be to oversee whether proper policies are adopted and more important whether the adopted policies are properly executed, he added.
Ombudsman protects individuals from the injustice done to them by any of the three organs of the government – Legislative, Executive and Judiciary.
Judge Justice Kh Nobin Singh of High Court of Manipur, members Lokayukta Manipur Ameising Luikham and Justice B D Agarwal(Retd) also attended the day’s awareness programme.