Former HC judge Ashim Roy appointed new Lokayukta

Kolkata: Former judge Ashim Kumar Roy, who was the Chairman of the West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission, will be the next Lokayukta of the state. The decision was taken unanimously during a meeting in the Assembly on Friday.

Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Biman Bandyopadhyay, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Leader of the Opposition Abdul Mannan and the Parliamentary Affairs minister Partha Chatterjee were present in the meeting.

Roy, a retired Calcutta High Court judge, will be the second Lokayukta in the state after Samaresh Banerjee, who had served in the same post between 2006 and 2009. The post remained vacant since then.

The West Bengal Lokayukta (Amendment) Bill 2018 was passed in the state Assembly in July this year, allowing the Lokayukta to investigate matters relating to the Chief Minister on the remaining 58 subjects under the state list, with the approval of two-third majority of the members in the state Assembly.

Mamata Banerjee had

earlier explained in the Assembly that the Chief Minister is not at all out of the purview of the Lokayukta, apart from the matters "relating to public order".

Meanwhile, former judge Soumitra Pal, who was a member of the West Bengal Information Commission, will be appointed as the new chairman of the West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission. Raj Kanojia has become a new member of the Information Commission.

Naparajit Mukherjee was given an extension as a member of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission.

Mukherjee was the former Director General of Police. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that Justice Girish Chandra Gupta is the chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission.

The state Assembly was adjourned on Friday, after obituary references were made

to some distinguished personalities from various fields, including politicians like the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.

The Speaker also read out the obituary references of Pankaj Banerjee, Ranjit Kundu, Ram Kumar Mondal, Dinesh Joardar, Anil Basu, Ajay Chakraborty, Ajit Wadekar, Gopal Basu, Biswanath Dutta and Annapurna Devi.