PANJIM: Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari virtually administered the oath of office of Lokayukta, Goa to Justice (Retd) Ambadas Joshi, a retired judge of the Bombay High Court at Raj Bhavan, Dona Paula on Friday.
Secretary to Governor, R Mihir Vardhan, read out the order of appointment of Lokayutkta. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Chief Secretary,Parimal Rai, Lokayukta Secretary P S Reddy and Vigilance Secretary Chaitanya Prasad were present.
Justice Joshi was the former chairman of the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal, Mumbai, having served his term from July 2014 to July 2019
The post of Lokayukta was lying vacant for over seven months after the term of Justice (Rtd) P K Misra ended on September 16, 2020.
Upon completing his tenure, Misra had expressed disappointment over the government’s lack of action on even one of the 21 reports he had submitted against public functionaries during his nearly four-and-a-half-year tenure as Lokayukta.
Earlier in January this year, the State government had amended the Lokayukta Act. This, however, had led to widespread criticism with the opposition MLAs alleging that the Act had been amended to dilute the Lokayukta’s powers and render the institution toothless.