Hyderabad: The Vigilance commission report seeking permission to prosecute 683 government officials facing charges of corruption was not tabled in the Assembly by the last government. Prosecution was delayed and some of those who were trapped by the Anti-Corruption Bureau have retired by now and escaped prosecution.
The Vigilance Commission was constituted in 2015 to detect corruption in the state’s public service. Every year the commission submits an annual report to the government giving details of government officials against whom cases have been booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The total number of government officials booked between 2015 and 2018 is 683 of which 419 were booked by the Anti-Corruption Bureau and 264 by other anti-crime departments.
The government is supposed to initiate action based on the commission’s report tabled on the floor of the house. However, not once was the report tabled, the government admitted in answer to a Right to Information (RTI) reply.
A letter by the public information officer of TS, states that, ‘The VC reports were not placed on the floor of the house from 2015 to December 11, 2018. The Vigilance reports for the years 2014-15 and 2015-16 are under examination for placing it in assembly and cannot be revealed as the reports are confidential.’
The ACB booked 419 trap and disproportionate assets cases and requested for permission to prosecute the accused. However, under the guise of processing the files, they were kept pending in various parent department in the TS Secretariat.
Thus none of the bureaucrats booked by the ACB were prosecuted. Many other traps where the Vigilance Commission recommended prosecution were struck off by the parent department.
If the new government does not table the reports, the work of the ACB will have been a waste.
