Kamla Beniwal

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Kamla Beniwal (Hindi:कमला बेनीवाल) is the Governor of the Indian state of Gujarat. Before this she was the Governor of Tripura.^[1] She is a senior congress politician from Rajasthan state. She served as minister in a number of congress ministries in Rajasthan state government. The 83 year old Kamla was first female governor of any North East state.^[2]

She was born in the village Gaurir in Jhunjhunu district.

At the age of 27, she was the first female minister in Rajasthan. Kamla has been a minister in Congress governments in Rajasthan since 1954, holding many portfolios, including home, education and agriculture. She was the revenue minister in the Ashok Gehlot government.

Appointment of Gujarat Lokayukta

The Lokayukta is a state-level body for checking on actions of the government, particularly corruption. in August 2011, Ms Beniwal appointed Justice R A Mehta as the Lokayukta under The governor took the action under Section 3 of the Gujarat Lokayukta Act, 1986, which gives the Governor the right to appoint Lokayukta without consulting the government^[3], in cases of extreme delay. Beniwal bypassed the Narendra Modi government of Gujarat, who had been sitting on the matter of appointing an Lokayukta (ombudsman) since 2004.

Justice Mehta's name had been recommended by the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court in June^[4] but the government had not been acting on it for two months. In August, the father of murdered RTI activist Amit Jethwa filed a Public Interest Litigation in the High Court, which then served a show cause notice on the government for the delay in appointment of Lokayukta. In response, the Narendra Modi cabinet had set up another committee of five ministers to look into the matter. This was widely viewed as a "a move to delay the appointment"^[5] of an anti-corruption chief.

Beniwal's action, coming against this background, is a bold step by a titular head of government. The step coincided with the Anna Hazare led 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement, coming on the 13th day of his fast, and attracted considerable media attention. Justice RA Mehta is known to be close to Hazare^[3].

The action has been challenged in court by Narendra Modi's government, who called the move "unconstitutional"^[6].