Many officials who have been caught red-handed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in Telangana are getting away with little consequence, an RTI reply received by Forum for Good Governance (FGG) in Hyderabad has shown.
The RTI application sought information about cases where the state government deviated from the ACB's recommendation and refused prosecution, even against senior government officials, who were allegedly found with disproportionate assets.
In a letter to Chief Secretary SK Joshi, FGG Secretary Padmanabha Reddy wrote, "Trap and disproportionate assets cases booked by ACB and reported to the government for permission to prosecute are diluted. In some cases, they are just closed and in some other cases, proposed for a departmental inquiry which never ends."
The forum gave a few examples including that of one Satyanarayana, a Deputy Collector at the office of the Hyderabad Collector who was caught in 2010 while allegedly taking a bribe. Despite a detailed inquiry report sent by the ACB that same year requesting for permission from the government to prosecute the accused, the state issued a Government Order (192 dated 14-2-2014) and ordered that further action be dropped.
To avoid scrutiny and criticism, the particular case was shown as still under inquiry, the forum alleged.
In another example, Deputy Collector Ramulu Naik was ‘trapped’ by ACB officials in 2011 and his assets were allegedly found to be disproportionate to his income. The ACB sent its final report to the government in 2014 but the state proposed a departmental inquiry and closed the FIR.
"How two serious cases including that of disproportionate assets are converted into a routine departmental inquiry? Revenue Department in Secretariat is acting like a godfather to (shield) corrupt officials," Padmanabha wrote in his letter.
"Forum for Good Governance requests the Chief Secretary to order for an inquiry into the closure of departmental action cases by Revenue Department. During the last five years, in about 50 cases, ACB request for prosecution was denied. Fear of punishment for wrongdoing is not there in government employees," he added.
Earlier this month, an RTI reply received by the Forum also highlighted official apathy in the sensational drug bust that exposed the dark underbelly of Tollywood, the Telugu film industry, in 2017. The RTI reply showed that at least 62 people were questioned related to the bust, but only 12 cases have been registered and four chargesheets filed by officials.
It was in June 2017 that the racket was busted by authorities in Hyderabad, in which about 1,000 students from leading private schools and colleges in the city and several Tollywood personalities were found to be using high-end drugs such as Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA).