Ex-SC judge Pinaki Ghose appointed India's first Lokpal

Mar 19 (AZINS) Former Supreme Court judge Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose was Tuesday appointed as the country's first Lokpal, the anti-corruption ombudsman, according to an official order.

Former Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) chief Archana Ramasundaram, ex-Maharashtra Chief Secretary Dinesh Kumar Jain, Mahender Singh and Indrajeet Prasad Gautam have been appointed as non-judicial members of Lokpal.

Justices Dilip B Bhosale, Pradip Kumar Mohanty, Abhilasha Kumari and Ajay Kumar Tripathi have been appointed as judicial members in the anti-corruption ombudsman.These appointments were recommended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led selection committee and approved by President Ram Nath Kovind. Opposition parties have been accusing the Modi government of delaying the appointment of Lokpal.

Justice Ghose, who hails from West Bengal, is the son of Justice SC Ghose, former chief justice of the Calcutta High Court. He was elevated as Supreme Court judge on March 8, 2013, and retired after a four-year tenure in May 2017. During his tenure at the apex court, he gave a number of landmark verdicts. He was part of the two-judge bench that ordered the trial court hearing the Babri Masjid demolition case to frame criminal conspiracy charge against senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh among others. By doing so, the apex court overturned the decision of the Allahabad High Court, which in 2001, had dropped this charge.

Ghose is also remembered for restoring punishment in a disproportionate assets case against former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa and her close aide VK Sasikala. The verdict came after Jayalalithaa's demise, but Sasikala went to jail to serve the remainder of her four-year prison term as ordered by the trial court.

He was also part of a Constitution Bench decision by the apex court that held that the state government does not have suo-motu powers to remit sentences of convicts punished under a central law. The order came with regard to the Tamil Nadu government's decision to grant remission to Rajiv Gandhi's killers.