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| SVO goes slow against corruption, 387 cases registered in J&K in 5 yrs | | Case registered 29 yrs back still under investigation | |
Asif Iqbal Naik
Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 20: Even as the J&K government in July this year terminated the services of 63 tainted officials, 25 of whom were booked in trap cases by various anti-graft bodies, 11 had established cases of disproportionate assets against them and 27 had miscellaneous cases registered against them, the functioning of the state vigilance organisation (SVO) is slow due to the alleged political pressure as a corruption case registered in 1986 is still under investigation for the last over 29 years along with hundreds of other cases of corruption involving politicians, bureaucrats and other government functionaries.
In last five years, the government has registered 387 corruption cases against various government officials, but to utter surprise no one was prosecuted till date in these corruption cases due to loop holes in legal procedures.
As per the details available with "Early Times", in 2009-10 the number of corruption cases registered are 101, in 2010-11 (111), 2011-12 (68), 2012-13 (68) and in 2013-14 (39) while the government accorded sanction to 201 cases and in 186 cases the sanction of prosecution is still awaited.
In last several years, the government is investigating 233 cases of corruption. These include 51 cases, which are lying with crime branch, and a 29 year old case which was registered under FIR No 9/1886 VOJ against IAS officer Mohammad Aslam Qureshi, then Custodian Jammu (now retired) and Asgar Ali then Assistant Custodian, E.P Jammu over the allegation of misuse of official position by preparing fictitious records.
Other cases registered under FIR No. 78/1994-VOJ registered against Khurshid Manhas, then Range Officer Mendhar (now Retired) for misappropriation of funds drawn on account of execution of works in forest range Surankot as well as misappropriation of timber and FIR No. 16-1999-VOJ against Dr M P Gupta, then Director Health Services Jammu (now retired), Dr M K Batyal, then Director Health Services Jammu (now Retired), Dr Abdul Majid, then CMO Jammu (now retired), Pawan Kumar Bakshi, then Senior Assistant in Director Health Services Jammu, Govind Singh, then senior Assistant to CMO Jammu and Bharat Bhushan Sharma, then BMO Bishnah for making illegal appointment of Safaiwalas in block Bishnah are also pending for the last nearly 15 to 20 years. There are several high profile cases registered with the Vigilance and Crime Branch involving high profile bureaucrats but these are gathering dust due to the alleged deliberate slow investigation by the concerned agencies to appease the political bosses as the officials who were involved in corruption remains their favourite and act as their shields who, many times, are even ready to become the scapegoats with the hope that political masters will help them to go scot free by influencing the inquiry.
The state government though agreed in principal that the corruption is the major cause of concern for it and even terminated the services of 63 of its tainted employees, the government has failed to eradicate the corruption from the public offices, beside it has also failed to strengthen the vigilance organisation. The government has though stated process to fill up the vacancies in State Accountability Commission beside to increase awareness about Right to Information Act, but even after 9 months since BJP-PDP came to power in J&K the State Vigilance commission along with State Accountability Commission are almost defunct institutions.
In order to expedite probe into the corruption cases, the government has recently created seven Additional District and Session Courts which have been designated as Anti Corruption Courts in Districts of Baramulla, Pulwama, Rajouri, Kathua, Udhampur and Doda for expediting the trail of cases registered under the J&K Prevention of Corruption Act 2006.
It is pertinent to mention that after terminating the services of 63 officials on corruption charges, the government faces lot of criticism for acting against lower rank officials. Over the termination of a KAS officer, insiders felt that it seemed to be politically motivated as he was one of petitioners in a court case challenging the impugned seniority list in which junior officers were promoted at the cost of deserving one during NC-Congress government who are still enjoying vital postings due to their political backing in the present government too. |
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