A retired Supreme Court Judge or High Court Chief Justice at its head: the Kerala Lok Ayukta and its camp sittings

Background

A cause list is up for the Kerala Lok Ayukta's sitting on 30 October, one of the daily lists it issues for its court at Thiruvananthapuram. It rests on Act 8 of 1999, the Kerala Lok Ayukta Act, 1999, which took over from a 1987 law on corruption among public men. Its work is to inquire into corruption and mal-administration by public servants, a class that reaches from the Chief Minister at the top down to a panchayat member at the bottom. Its head is the Lok Ayukta, and only someone who has already sat as a Judge of the Supreme Court, or as Chief Justice of a High Court, may fill that post. Two Upa-Lok Ayuktas sit alongside, and each must be serving as a Judge of a High Court or have served as one. The Governor makes all three appointments on the advice of the Chief Minister, who first consults the Leader of the Opposition and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. The term runs five years, and at its end the holder may not be reappointed to that same post. A Registrar heads the registry, a District Judge brought on deputation from the Kerala Higher Judicial Service, and an Investigation Agency works with the forum, with an I.G of Police on it, a Superintendent of Police, Deputy Superintendents and other officers. Besides the court inside the Legislature complex at Thiruvananthapuram, camp sittings are held at Kottayam, Ernakulam, Kozhikode, Thalassery and Kannur, and filing a complaint costs nothing.