Sunday, January 20, 2013

Depts holding up action against ‘corrupt’ exposed

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has put several of its departments in the dock for sitting on requests for action against public servants prima facie found engaging in corruption.

In an affidavit filed on Monday before the Bombay high court, the state home department notes that other departments have repeatedly failed to clear the prosecution or investigation of more than 150 administrators and politicians accused in graft cases. Some permissions are awaited since 2001.

In the affidavit, joint secretary (home) Ruprao Deshmukh says that seven reminders were sent to the concerned departments’ secretaries between 2011 and 2012 to approve at the earliest the pending Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) proposals. Officials revealed to TOI that their response was far from ideal.

Rules mandate that the ACB follow stipulated steps while investigating a government official or minister. Most prominent among them is seeking the state’s approval to conduct an “Open Inquiry” and to prosecute. The state gives its nod after an ACB appeal has travelled through various stages and been green-lighted at every juncture.

“To clear the sanction-to-prosecute cases and review pendency, meetings were taken by the chief secretary on July 14, September 28 and December 31 of 2012. A booklet on relevant judgments on sanction to prosecute under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, was circulated to secretaries,” reads the affidavit filed before the high court, which is hearing a public interest litigation on the issue.

The petition is likely to be heard by the court on Wednesday.


According to the affidavit, the highest number of the allegedly corrupt officers is in the police and revenue departments, which together account for more than 40% of the pending approvals. These are followed in the graft list by municipal corporations, zilla parishads and others.

The affidavit lays bare some departments’ delay in clearing action against high-profile functionaries as well as class III and class IV employees for over a decade.

Home department officials said the affidavit is an effort to debunk accusations that the government is not willing to take on corrupt officials and politicians. Governmental apathy has been blamed even by the ACB for lack of headway in graft cases.

According to the affidavit, 42 applications for prosecution of class I and class II officials were pending till December 2012. For class III and IV officials, the list was longer at 67 pending cases.

In 17 cases, even Open Enquiries were not sanctioned against senior politicians and bureaucrats: Among these were PWD minister Chhagan Bhujbal, former CM Vilasrao Deshmukh, then Akola municipal commissioner L Deshmukh, IAS (officer) Ashok Lal, M B Appalwar (then posted with MHADA), Congress MLA Ram Prasad Bordikar, Haffkine Biopharma MD Prakash Sabde, and former Nashik municipal commissioner Bhaskar Sanap.

“These are crucial cases, but not a single approval has come in them. Why has the government not taken action against the department secretaries sitting on these files?” said a senior ACB officer. He added that the delay in sanctions is a deliberate attempt to put the cases in cold storage.
Courtesy:
Sharad Vyas TNN
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=pastissues2&BaseHref=TOIM/2013/01/09&PageLabel=4&EntityId=Ar00302&ViewMode=HTML

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