Hyderabad: Just like the Intelligence department of Andhra Pradesh which is witnessing a complete revamp, a major overhaul of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of AP has begun with a detailed review of all previous cases, especially the innumerable discreet inquiries involving certain bureaucrats and the status of the benami properties that surfaced during various investigations in the last few years.
In the Chandrababu Naidu regime, the ACB is understood to have made numerous discreet inquiries about certain bureaucrats and other government officials, which did not fructify into regular action and got lost along the way. Now, with the new government in place and Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy announcing that he will give a corruption-free government, all eyes are on the ACB.
In the recent reshuffle of IPS officers, senior IPS officer Kumar Vishwajeet was appointed Director General of the ACB and took charge of his new assignment a few days ago.
ACB sources told Deccan Chronicle that the sleuths are likely to study the pattern of the discreet inquiries and what happened to them eventually. Investigations into the disproportionate assets cases against officials, the subsequent linkages that emerged with other government or private people is also being studied.
While a review of discreet inquiries and assets case is being taken up, special emphasis will be laid on the benami properties (properties in the name of proxies) that came to light during the various probes. “Several accused in assets cases had benami properties and the ACB will be interested in knowing what has become of those benami properties,” said one official.
When compared to other departments, the Naidu government had gone a step ahead in giving manpower and infrastructure to the ACB. To begin with, the then TD government had sanctioned 350 additional ranks for the ACB along with 50 more employees to be outsourced and opened new buildings for the ACB in several districts, besides providing additional vehicles.
“The ACB is one of the topmost priorities for the Chief Minister and he was not happy with the way the ACB has been functioning for the last few years. He was briefed about many aspects of the agency and he wanted a complete overhaul to be taken up at the earliest,” a government official said.
When contacted, ACB Director General Kumar Vishwajeet told this newspaper that the ACB needed complete overhauling and the process was underway. Asked whether all discreet inquiries and assets cases are being reviewed, he said: “I will have to go through the work that was done here and I will study everything and then we will do whatever is required to be done.”
