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
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IRRIGATION SCAM : NCP may seek judicial probe to keep SIT at bay

Mumbai: In a politically strategic move, the NCP has decided to submit a proposal for a high-level judicial probe into the multi-crore irrigation scam in the state to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.

Although Chavan declined comment, a senior Congress minister told TOI on Sunday that the NCP had sought legal opinion on entrusting the probe to a panel set up under the Commission of Inquiry Act to end the weeklong stalemate over the scandal in both houses of the state legislature.

The minister pointed out that six public interest litigations against deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and water resources minister Sunil Tatkare were pending before the Bombay high court, while leader of opposition Eknath Khadse is in the process of filing two more PILs on gross misuse of power and corruption in the irrigation department.

“The NCP fears that the court may order setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) or entrust the probe to the CBI as urged by the petitioners. In that event, the NCP will be at the receiving end. To avoid such a situation, the NCP itself will propose a judicial probe. If the proposal is accepted, then it will inform the court accordingly. In that event, the chances of setting up a SIT will be lower,’’ the minister said. Irrigation white paper has ‘outdated, misleading’ stats

Mumbai: Lies, damned lies and statistics.
The controversial white paper on irrigation projects produced by the state water resources ministry is littered with outdated, confusing and allegedly misleading statistics. Data pertaining to over half a dozen major projects are at least a decade old and widely differ from information submitted by the ministry to the state assembly eight months ago.

Most projects are in drought-prone Vidarbha region. A senior department official said the white paper seems to have exaggerated the irrigation potential and actual land which came under irrigation.

A detailed analysis of the two-volume report released by chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on November 29 shows old data was used to boost figures of land under irrigation.

The discrepancies are glaring, as in the case of the Wan project in Akola district of Vidarbha. The white paper boasts that the irrigated land due to this project is 14,428 hectares. It also admits that this figure is for the financial year 2003-04.

However, the programme estimate booklet presented in the budget session of the state assembly early this year,issilenton theirrigated land and shows it as ‘nil’. “Even if the figures in the white paper are correct, it is misleading to give data whichis a decadeold,’’ sources said. The department has to give updated figures every year, they added.

In the Upper Wardha project in Amravati district, the white paper shows a total irrigated area of 36,119 hectarestill2007-08.On theother hand, the programme estimates booklet pegged the figure at 31,760 hectares in 2010-11. “This is a total farce. The white paper relied on fiveyear-old data. Moreover, the figure in the estimates booklet shows a smaller area under irrigation,’’ department officials said.

The Arunavati project in Yavatmal district is another where major discrepancies have been found.

The white paper pegs the land under irrigation at 10,229 hectares, although the programme estimates booklet gives a figure of 670 hectares as on 2009-11.

Differences in expenditure figures have also been found in the Pench project in Nagpur. While the white paper saidonly Rs293 crorewas spent till March 2012, the estimates booklet pegged it at Rs 323 crore till March 2011.

The length of the right bank main canal of the Gosikhurd national irrigation project also varies in the two government documents. The white paper puts its length at 99 km while the estimates booklet shows it at 107 km. TOI had reported how the white paper claimed the quantum of landbroughtunder irrigation by the Gosikhurd project was 5,279 hectares, but the programme estimates booklet puts the figure at1,582hectares. Similarly, the white paper claimed expenditure on the Gosikhurd project was Rs 6,073 crore, but the programme estimates booklet puts the figure at Rs 6,609 crore.

Interestingly, the white paper does not reveal the actual figures of land under irrigation in western Maharashtra. It only gives the irrigation potential (where canals are ready, but water hasn’t reached fields) these projects have created.

The target irrigation potential of many projects in western Maharashtra is pegged on a lower side in the programme estimates compared to the white paper.

“If figures in the programme estimates booklet are wrong, it will be a fit case for breach of privilege in the assembly,’’ the sources said.

Courtesy:
Prafulla Marpakwar TNN
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