HC relief for ACB: Corrupt officials will now have a tough time

HYDERABAD: While directing the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to conduct a fresh probe into the liquor syndicate scam, the Andhra Pradesh high court in its recent order also provided a major relief to the agency by pointing out that the state government cannot deny granting permission to prosecute an official based on his or her explanation. ACB officers believe that this direction will enable the agency to secure maximum convictions in trap and disproportionate assets (DA) cases and enhance their performance.

The high court found the state at fault for adopting a strange practice of inviting explanations from the accused public servants when probe agencies seek sanction for prosecution, and stated, "The state has no business seeking explanations. You cannot play the role of an adjudicator. From now, you have to take a decision on whether or not to accord sanction for prosecution within three months on all such cases pending with you. If the accused are aggrieved, they have the option of challenging the FIR."

With the court clearly stating that the state government cannot play the role of an adjudicator and also directing it to take a call within three months on whether or not to accord sanction for prosecution on all pending cases, ACB sleuths opine they have hit a jackpot.

Since 2005, the state government has not accorded permission for prosecution in 145 trap cases and 60 DA cases. The ACB keeps sending reminders to the government about pending permission requests, but there seems to be little response. Requests for prosecution relating to a trap case registered in 2005 and a DA case of 2006 are still pending.

In addition to the pending requests, there have been hundreds of cases where permission is denied. "The state government simply used to take an explanation from the accused official and defer the probe by saying that the explanation given by the accused official is satisfactory," said an ACB official.

Ideally, the malpractice by the government can be checked by legislators when the government submits the annual Vigilance Commission (VC) report before the Legislative Assembly every year. The reason for not granting permission for prosecution in each ACB case is supposed to be explained by the government in the Legislative Assembly through a memo furnished along with the annual VC's report.

But for the past 17 years, successive governments have not placed the VC reports before the assembly. During this corresponding period, the government has rejected permission to prosecute 665 corrupt officials booked by the ACB.