Justice Santhosh Hegde :
Man with Ability to Blend into any Situation...

by Florine Roche

Feb 24, 2010

The JD (S) BJP coalition government in Karnataka that ruled for a brief interlude deserves kudos at least on one count.  It was during their tumultuous reign the then Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy took a conscious decision of appointing Justice N Santhosh Hegde as the new Lokayukta of Karnataka, putting an end days of speculation of former Justice Venkatachala getting a second term.  Naturally the very mention of the name Lokayukta strikes an immediate chord reminding us of this man at the helm who has become persona-non-grata to top police officials bureaucrats and politicians for relentlessly carrying on the crusade against corruption. 

Justice Santhosh Hegde who took over the mantle of Karnataka Lokayukta with the shadow of the indefatigable Justice Venkatachala looming large over him, has proved to be on equal footing with his predecessor and even overshadowing him with his style of functioning and a no nonsense attitude.  Known to be soft spoken or mild he gave a fitting response of all those who expressed apprehensions and doubted his ability to effectively fit into the shoes of his fiery predecessor.  “I am like a chameleon.  I fit into any situation effortlessly”, he muses.  

A no to Politics 

“I harbor no political ambitions, have no political connections, I hate politics and that invariably includes politicians” he exclaims in one breath.   Despite his open animosity towards anything remotely connected with politics and politicians, his appointment as Lokayukta is a stupendous achievement in itself.  

Since donning the mantle of Karnataka Lokayukta on August 3, 2006, Justice Santhosh Hegde has won accolades for his honesty, integrity, hard work and determination.   He has been a nightmare to all the corrupt bureaucrats at the top level who were untouched hitherto until Hegde decided to catch the big fish and bring them to book. He has done justice to the role of Lokayukta which was set up with the lofty ideals of catching dishonest officials so as to send right signals to the common man.  Unfortunately despite all the bravado exhibited by the Lokyukta it remains only a tiger without teeth as it has been denied prosecution powers thus nullifying its efforts.  Nevertheless under constant media glare he has acquired teeth and claws to his institution much to the chagrin of bureaucrats. 

The Humanitarian Touch 

There is more to Justice Santhosh Hegde than just nailing corrupt officials which often gets obscured in the absence of media blitzkrieg.   “Our work relating to anticorruption is only 10 percent.  90 percent of our work is related to solving the problems relating to maladministration.  Be it looking into problems faced by people in hospitals, pension irregularities, denying of facilities under government schemes, bribing, illegal constructions etc., - Lokayukta has handled everything and with reasonable success”, he narrates. 

While his mission to cleanse the system and his pursuit for justice continues he has responded to render humanitarian help. “I have come across incidents which will bring tears in your eyes he says” and narrated the incident of a handicapped tailor from Bagalkot who had approached Lokayukta office with his infant with a deformed intestine.  The government doctor had demanded bribe to the tune of 80,000. Unable to meet the cost he was forced to leave the child in the hands of Lokayukta to take care of the child.

Justice Hegde took up this challenge and approached the private hospitals and to his own surprise Manipal Hospital, Bangalore performed the operation for just Rs. 8000.  Lokayukta settled the bills of the hospital much to the relief of the parents of the infant.  Having done this Lokayukta initiated disciplinary action against the erring doctor who had demanded bribe.  “Here I acted on behalf of the government doing what it should have done.  If I had not intervened imagine what would have happened to the child” he asks.  The Lokayukta receives on an average 50 to 60 complaints daily on a range of subjects and tries to solve as many as possible.   

How does his highly motivated team deals with the frustration arising out of lack of persecution powers against corrupt officials nailed by them?  “What would you have done if you were in my position”, he counters me with this question.  “Lokayukta police officials have faced maximum torture in the form of cases booked under SC/ST Atrocities Act or cases booked under section 340 and even defamation cases.  We are in fact working against all odds”, Hegde says recounting the problems faced by his department because of their pro-active pursuance of cases.  In this mission of rooting out the pernicious menace he has been fortunate to have the support of Lokayukta officers like R K Datta, Pranab Mohanty and others.  

He says he could not understand the rationality of requiring special sanction to prosecute a government servant when ordinary citizens are denied such privileges.  “This kind of duality is a democracy where the government servants are held above ordinary people is a farce. It is required to some extent in criminal procedure of cases” Hedge argues.    

Education – Parental gift 

Born in Nitte Village of Karkala Taluk in Udupi District on June 16, 1940, he is the son of former Supreme Court judge late K S Hegde and late Meenakshi Hegde.  3rd among the 6 children he has proved to be the illustrious son of his  equally illustrious father and an equally well respected Nitte Univesity Vice Chancellor Nitte Vinaya Hegde’s brother.   He had his early education at St Aloysius School, Mangalore and later in Madras Christian College.  He did his BSc from Central College Bangalore and completed his law from Government Law College, Bangalore.  
Santhosh Hegde joined the bar in 1966 and was appointed as Advocate General in 1984.  Designated as Senior Advocate in 1984 and held that position General till 1988. He was appointed Additional Solicitor General of India in November 1989 and became the Solicitor General of India in 1998. Finally he was appointed as Judge of the Supreme Court in India in 1999 directly from the Bar 20 days before his mother’s death.  

Expectations were high when Santhosh Hegde stepped into the shoes of the fiery Venkatachala. “People were expecting me to be another Venkatachala.  It took sometime for people to understand that my style of functioning was different.  I have tried to change the system of working of the Lokayukta”, he contends.  Santhosh Hegde compares himself to an army general saying “just like an army general who does not go to the war front but chalks out a war strategy for his men I merely interact with my officers and motivate them and they actually carry out the raids or traps.   And the results are there for everyone to see”.  

Corruption vs Terrorism 

He equates corruption with terrorism saying “it equals terrorism because it facilitates corruption. Be it in getting a passport, or voter id or a driving license in our country, nothing can be achieved without greasing the palms of the officials. Corruption has permeated every aspect of human life mainly because decision making authorities are corrupt”.  Santhosh Hegde has great faith and expectations from the younger generations.  He says we, our generation could not do anything.  We are responsible for building this corruption and the next generation can help us weed it out.  

To accomplish this Santhosh Hegde has now made it his mission to visit schools and colleges to apprise the generation next and change their attitude towards greed and corruption and has visited 137 educational institutions in the last 3 1/2 years.  “I have just one message to the younger generation.  Build a just society and confine all your desires in life within the legitimate income.  You must have ambition but don’t allow ambition to become an obsession”, he sounds a word of caution.  
 
Justice Santhosh Hegde is a living example to show that one can derive maximum satisfaction with the legitimate income.  He lives a simple life and his wife Sharada is a perfect accomplice in his scheme of things and has been his pillar of strength.  Sharada is a Punjabi settled in Bangalore.  Her brother was studying with Santhosh in Bangalore and naturally cupid struck its arrow and they became partners for life.   

He has just one flat in Bangalore and has hankered for any other worldly possessions.  Though he visits Mangalore often he does so in his personal capacity with his own expenses without any gun-wielding security following him.  He has no children and feels that his income is sufficient for a comfortable living for him and his wife Sharada.  He however, hastens to add that “one cannot say that those without children are not greedy.  It is the question of ones attitude and priorities”.  

It was his mother Meenakshi Hegde who greatly influenced his life.  She was responsible for imbibing human values among her children.  With his father Justice K S Hegde busy outside and contributed monetary wise the responsibility of children’s upbringing was solely on the mother.  His father had  made it clear to the children that he would provide the best of education to them and nothing else which meant the children had to work hard to find a career for themselves and that is what Santhosh Hegde and his other siblings did and they are all sharing a good camaraderie.      

A Contented Man 

Life has been good to him and he bears no rancor or has no regrets in life.  His father had advised his children not to stay separately from one another and they have followed his sanguine advice successfully.  Whenever he comes to Mangalore he stays with his brother or sisters.  He has a small group of friends and they meet often.  He is happy listening to music, old Hindi songs being his favourite. He does yoga three times a week under the guidance of a teacher.  “I am not that disciplined to do it on my own” is his quick repartee.  He believes in god but is not ritualistic.  He has no penchant for watching movies.  “The year I got married I stopped watching movies”, he says with a chortle.       

He rubbished all rumours of him trying to parliament seat and when he came to know about this malicious propaganda he asked people “nanage votu all eetu kodi” (beat me don’t vote me) and he laughs off at the fecund imagination of mischief mongers.   

It goes to the credit of Justice Santhosh Hegde that he has made Lokayukta accessible to common man and by netting corrupt officials he has accomplished a rare and unheard of task. Only if the Lokayukta is given prosecution powers whatever hard work Santhosh Hegde and his men have put in will bear desired fruits.