The long wait ends; NLA passes Nagaland Lokayukta Bill 2015 with amendments

Kohima Bureau
Kohima, Dec. 15 (EMN): The Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) has finally passed the Nagaland Lokayukta Bill 2015 with amendments on Dec. 15. The Lokayukta is an anti-corruption ombudsman body to check corruption allegations against administrators and legislators, and various sections of the society have been demanding for its implementation in the state.
“We have accepted most of the recommendations of the select committee… Our Government has thus redeemed a promise given to the people of Nagaland that an anti-corruption Ombudsman (Lokayukta) will be established in the state. We have lived up to the expectations of the people and the pressure groups and by enacting this Bill, we have joined the comity of a large number of states in India, which has established this institution,” said Chief Minister TR Zeliang while moving for adoption of the said Bill on the second day of the 19th session of the 12th NLA on Friday.
However, Zeliang expressed his reservations that only merely enacting a law like this is not enough to reduce or abolish corruption in public life.
“Every single citizen must be committed to probity both in his personal and public lives. Then only the law will become a success, ” he stated.
Lest it crumbles like the NLTP Act!
The chief minister also expressed concern that changes or action will not take place by just passing an Act unless the people and the implementation agencies commit themselves . Citing the example of the now infamous Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition Act of 1989, Zeliang stated that the church and the people were happy with the passing of the Act, that the state will become a dry state, but in reality, the Act became like a ‘white elephant’. “We did not see the implementation of the Act because of non-cooperation from the civil society and ineffective implementation by the agencies and departments concerned,” Zeliang said.
“If the people and civil society are not serious, only demanding for passage of the Bill will not stop corruption on ground,” he reiterated.
Towards this, he said the state Lokayukta Bill may call for more perfection, but hoped that people will give the law a chance. “Once in operation, we will come to know what are the deficiencies and demerits. The people and civil societcan now evaluate the law in action and we can always amend the law to plug the loopholes and we can always keep improving the text of the law so that the efficiency of the law is periodically improved. Therefore, we should stop developing differences over how the law is at the beginning should be. As I said, on review and evaluation, we will bring more perfection to the law. The law should not be blocked because what an NGO wants is not in the law. Such an expectation will be a tragic parochialism,” Zeliang said.
Earlier, participating in the discussion during the consideration of the Bill, MLA Yitachu reminded the house that ‘a written act will not do anything good’ if it is not implemented in letter and spirit and that it is the people who implements any act or laws ‘works for the people.’
Noting there is a common misconception that only politicians are corrupt, MLA Thomas Ngullie asserted that ‘the bigger thugs’ are ‘some bureaucrats and technocrats’ who owned undisclosed properties and wealth.
Towards this, Ngullie pointed out that the Bill which is meant for redressal of public grievances with effective implementation is aimed to expose the truly corrupt politicians, bureaucrats or technocrats.
Speaker Imtiwapang Aier put to vote 22 point amendment to the Bill clause by clause and the House passed it by voice vote.