The Lokayukta's jurisdiction is limited to investigating corrupt practices involving willful lack of financial integrity and/or willful abuse of power for personal gain.

Deepak Gupta, J.

By means of this writ petition, the petitioner has laid challenge to the recommendation of the Lokayukta (Annexure 15) as well as the further proceedings initiated against him by the State Level Scrutiny Committee, vide Annexure-16.

2. The undisputed facts are, that the petitioner was appointed as Fishery Officer in the Department of Fisheries, Government of Tripura on 19.05.1990 against a seat meant for the scheduled tribes. On 06.01.2001, the Tripura Upajati Karmachari Committee, filed a complaint against the petitioner alleging that the petitioner had wrongly shown himself to be a member of the scheduled tribe. As per Presidential Order no. 10 of 2003, one of the scheduled tribes for the state of Tripura is ‘Bhutia’. The petitioner claims that he is a member of ‘Bhutia’ community but according to the complainants, the petitioner was a ‘Sherpa’ which is not a part of the ‘Bhutia’ community.

3. The complainant was inquired into by the State Level Scrutiny Committee which vide its Order dated 04.04.2011 held that the petitioner is a member of the scheduled tribe and he is member of the ‘Bhutia’ community. Thereafter, in the year 2014, private respondent nos. 8 and 9 submitted a complaint to the learned Lokayukta of Tripura. In this complaint, the main allegation was that the petitioner had wrongly obtained appointment as Fishery Officer against a scheduled tribe post by wrongly showing that he is a member of scheduled tribe.

4. The learned Lokayukta inquired into the matter. He has recorded evidences and has called various officials including the Chairman of the State Level Scrutiny Committee before him and finally he has given a recommendation on 13.11.2014 wherein he has held that he was clearly of the view that ‘Sherpa’ cannot be treated as scheduled tribe for Tripura. He has also come to the conclusion that there is no corrupt practice in the case but since ‘Sherpa’ should not be treated as scheduled tribe in Tripura, the petitioner should henceforth be treated as a General candidate for all intents and purposes. The question that arises is, whether the learned Lokayukta had any jurisdiction to pass such orders.      

5. We are afraid that the learned Lokayukta has totally over-stepped his jurisdiction. The Lokayukta can only investigate into matters relating to corrupt practice and corrupt practice has been defined as follows:-

“2(5). “corrupt practice” means that the public functionary in any of his action has been guilty of willful lack of financial integrity and/or willful abuse of power for personal gain”.

6. Therefore, the jurisdiction of the Lokayukta is limited to decide whether any public functionary has been guilty of willful lack of financial integrity and/or willful abuse of power for personal gain. We failed to understand how this provision could have been resorted to in the present case.

7. From the material on record it is apparent that before the Lokayukta took up the matter and much before the complaint was filed before it, the State Level Scrutiny Committee had decided the issue in favour of the writ petitioner. This State Level Scrutiny Committee has been appointed by the State government pursuant to the directions issued by the Apex Court in Kumari Madhuri Patil & anr. Vs. Addl. Commissioner, Tribal Development and ors., reported in AIR 1995 Supreme Court 94. The decision of the State Level Scrutiny Committee is not amenable to the jurisdiction of the Lokayukta. If anybody is aggrieved by the decision of the State Level Scrutiny Committee, then the only forum which that person can approach is the High Court which in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India can look into the matter. The Lokayuta has no jurisdiction whatsoever to decide on the correctness or otherwise of the finding given by the State Level Scrutiny Committee.

8. We are also constrained to observe that in the present case, the learned Lokayukta has not followed the mandate of Sectio