Hyderabad: The clamour for immediate termination of corrupt state officials has increased in the backdrop of the Central Bureau of Investigation removing from service one of its inspectors who was caught accepting bribes in Madhya Pradesh.
A day after the MP incident, the Telangana Anti Corruption Bureau conducted a raid against ACP T.S. Umamaheswara Rao rao of the Hyderabad Central Crime Station (CCS). Apart from allegations of amassing wealth by collecting bribes all through his service, the police official, in the instant case, was booked for extorting the directors of Saahiti Infra under the guise of making the company repay the customers to whom it owes crores of rupees.
“It is a fit case for termination invoking Article 311 of the Constitution. There were precedents in Telangana police also,” a senior ACB official told Deccan Chronicle. “As a uniformed government servant, he is expected to abide by the law and protect the people,” the ACB official said adding that Umamaheshwara Rao had collected money from the infra company on the one hand and chased away the customers in whose name the money was collected.
Earlier, at least in three instances, police terminated the services of two constables who were committing robberies by joining a gang, an inspector for raping a woman and another sub-inspector for getting involved in theft of vehicles. “We have to establish that further inquiry is not required because the evidence found during the raid itself is sufficient to terminate the accused,” the official pointed out.
But doubts were being raised about taking firm action given the state government developing cold feet against the corrupt after initial euphoria. A few months ago, the ACB caught corrupt HMDA official S. Balakrishna who allegedly bought properties worth more than Rs.150 crore under benami names. The ACB sleuths also recovered Rs.99 lakh and 1.9 kilograms of gold ornaments and six kilos of silver.
Significantly, the official confessed to have paid crores of rupees of the loot money to senior IAS official Arvind Kumar but the government developed cold feet and the investigating agency did not even summon the former municipal administration and urban development chief for questioning.
In the phone tapping case also, the investigating agencies did not go beyond seeking confession statements of the accused, who were mid-level officials, and spared senior police officials who according to the prime accused T. Prabhakar Rao, former SIB chief, were responsible for ordering the phone tapping.
