'No one can question justice Santosh Hegde's integrity '

BV Acharya, senior counsel and former advocate general of Karnataka, recalls the good old times he has had with his pal, justice Santosh Hegde.

My days of acquaintance with the Hegde family date back to the years from 1947 to 1951 when I was a student of St Aloysius College in Mangalore. Justice Santosh Hegde’s father KS Hegde was then a public prosecutor in Mangalore and I used to love to hear his arguments. However, I did not meet Santosh during that time.

It was destiny that bought us together in the high court. In 1972, both of us came as advocates to the court. Since then, we have had a good rapport and fought many cases together. He was always a hard working person. After becoming the Lokayukta justice, he became all the more hard working.

On December 18 1989, I became the advocate-general of the high court. On the same day, Santosh became the solicitor-general of the Supreme Court.

We took charge on the same day. After that, for ten months, I went to Supreme Court and took advice from him on various issues. We never lost touch with each other all these years. Even now, I appear in the high court to deal with various cases for Lokayukta.

As Lokayukta, he did a commendable job although he did not receive enough cooperation from the state government. All through the day, he attended all telephone calls from the public. He used to keep cell phones accessible even at night.

No one can question his integrity and commitment to the job. He sincerely wanted to put down corruption at all levels.
Many a time, I found him quite unhappy. One reason was the post of Upa Lokayukta which remained vacant for a long time despite appeals for filling it.

Even Lokayukta cannot step in there and thousands of matters coming under Upa Lokayukta are still pending.

There should have been consultation for the post of  Upa Lokayukta when the previous justice had retired itself.