Legal battle against those who violate the law

aaron, Sep 11, 2019, 8:51 AM IST

Mangaluru: As per the Lokayukta Act, if the former members of the city corporation attempt to contest the upcoming election based on the assets declaration affidavit submitted during the previous election, they may face legal difficulties.

Social workers have decided to fight a legal battle against those former members of MCC who have not declared their assets and will nonetheless attempt to contest in the upcoming election. As per the Lokayukta Act, all representatives of the people, from MLAs to the members of the city corporation must compulsorily submit assets declaration every here.

Hence, a few social workers have come forward to give complaint to the election commission and Lokayukta against the former members of the corporation for violating the Lokayukta act y not submitting asset declaration for five years. Besides, all candidates attempting the upcoming election must submit their assets declaration form by prescribed deadline.

Three week deadline; opportunity

The Lokayukta act was amended in 2010 according to which, all elected members of the municipality, city corporation and metro corporation must submit their assets declaration form to the Lokayukta. But this has not been done since 9 years. In this backdrop, social worker H M Venkatesh from Bengaluru submitted a complaint in this regard to Lokayukta recently because of which the Lokayukta gave the deadline of Oct 28 for all elected members to submit their assets declaration form.

In this connection, a delegation of social workers visited the Mangaluru City Corporation on Monday, met the assistant commissioner Gayatri Nayak and gave her a copy of the Lokayukta’s order. They requested her to write a letter regarding the order to inform and ask the 60 members whose term has ended to follow it.

If in case they fail to follow the rule and still attempt to contest the election, a case will be boked against them with the Lokayukta, they warned.

Former members should declare their assets

As per the Lokayukta act, former members of the corporation are also entitled to declare their assets. But nobody has done it. All members whose terms have ended must declare their assets before the deadline. If not, the decision has been taken to give complaint to the Lokayukta and the election commission against those former cooperators who will contest the upcoming election – H M Venkatesh, social worker

Declare assets

According to the Lokayukta act, all members of all the local bodies including corporations and municipalities are entitled to submit their assets declaration form. Corporators and councilors must submit their asset declaration form within three weeks. The order has already been issued. Inspection will be done regarding the submission of asset declaration form by members whose term has completed – P Vishwanath Shetty, Lokayukta