(1) The Chairperson and Members shall be appointed by the Governor after obtaining the recommendations of a Selection Committee consisting of
(a) the Chief Minister chairperson;
(b) the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly member; (c) the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly member;
(d) the Chief Justice of the High Court of Meghalaya or a Judge of the High Court nominated by him member;
(e) an eminent person nominated by the Governor member.
(2) No appointment of a Chairperson or a Member shall be invalid merely by reason of any vacancy in the Selection Committee.
(3) The Selection Committee shall for the purposes of selecting the Chairperson and Members of the Lokayukta and for preparing a panel of persons to be considered for appointment as such, constitute a Search Committee consisting of at least five persons of standing and having special knowledge and expertise in the matters relating to anti-corruption policy, public administration, vigilance, policy making, finance including insurance and banking, law, and management, or in any other matter which, in the opinion of the Selection Committee, may be useful in making selection of the Chairperson and Members of the Lokayukta:
Provided that not less than fifty percent of the Members of the Search Committee shall be from amongst the persons belonging to the Schedule Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and women:
Provided further that at the commencement of this Act, the Search Committee may submit a panel of names twice the number of Chairperson and Members of Lokayukta for consideration by the Selection Committee and subsequently thrice the number of vacancies to be filled up:
Provided also that the Selection Committee may also consider any person other than the persons recommended by the Search Committee.
(4) The Selection Committee shall regulate its own procedure for selecting the Chairperson and Members of the Lokayukta which shall be transparent.
(5) The term of the Search Committee referred to in subsection (3), the fees and allowances payable to its members and the manner of selection of panel of names shall be such as may be prescribed.