The Gujarat Lokayukta: Need to Reform for Ensuring Good Governance

The core principle of good governance is ensuring transparency and accountability in administration and governance. It has been envisaged that this can be achieved through creation of powerful ombudsman institution, ‘Lokayukta’, that can act as a mechanism of accountability and improve the administration of the government in terms of effectiveness and transparency. The mounting corruption in public administration, the failure of any possible check and control mechanism over abuse and misuse of power by public functionary including wilful non-exercise of powers has pushed the center to create a super watchdog called the Lokpal at the central level and Lokayuktas in states. Interestingly, though Lokayuktas have been established, their performance has been dismal. Gujarat's Lokayukta is one which has been criticized as ‘toothless snake’, ‘paper tiger’ since it provides the Lokayukta only recommendatory power. This paper aims to analyze the effectiveness of lokayukta in comparison with other states while attempting to suggest reformation for strengthening the institution.