Ending a long wait, India’s first Lokpal has been constituted consisting of a chairperson and eight members. The President of India has appointed former Supreme Court judge Pinaki Chandra Ghose as Chairperson of Lokpal of the country. Justice Ghosh was selected by a committee comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Loksabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, and Mukul Rahtogi as eminent jurist. Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, who is part of the committee, did not attend the meeting.
The Lokpal will be assisted by 4 judicial members and 4 non-judicial members. The judicial members are Justice Dilip B. Bhosale, Justice Pradip Kumar Mohanty, Justice Abhilkasha Kumari, Justice Ajay Kumar Tripathi, all of them are former chief justices of various high courts. While the non-judicial members are Dinesh Kumar Jain, Archana Ramasundaram, Mahender Singh and Indrajeet Prasad Gautam.
The Lokpal is an anti-corruption authority or ombudsman, having jurisdiction over all Members of Parliament and central government employees in cases of corruption. The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 was passed by the Parliament of India in 2013, after several amendments to the original draft prepared by the joint draft committee when the Lokpal movement led by Anna Hazare was at its peak.
Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose is a member of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) at present, who had retired from Supreme Court in May 2017.
