In the battle against corruption, the ACB is toothless, with the government in control and overworked with three PIs handling 240 cases.The Goan investigates and reveals why the ACB can’t be Goa’s anti-corruption tool in the absence of the Lok Ayukta.
How manycases can 14 police personnel handle? Many will be a common refrain. But whatif each one is a high profile one and has political overtones that leads to keypoliticians and bureaucrats? In Goa, the answer is quite simply none.
The present governmentwas swept into power by a state that was disgusted with the levels ofcorruption that had seeped into every level of the system. The Governmentresponded by instituting enquiries into each case of corruption. And in theabsence of the Lok Ayukta, the ACB was seen as a great big hope. Has itfulfilled this promise. The answer is no but the blame cannot lie on the ACB’sdoor. Inherent in the ACB’s failure is the fact this is just an arm of thegovernment and a division of the vigilance department ill equipped to handlethe mountain of cases that are routinely passed on to them. And toothless withno power to register FIR’s unless the government clears it. Bosco George, theSuperintendent of Police “Whengovernment hands over cases to us we only conduct an inquiry and hand the caseback to the government, which decides if an FIR should be filed”
When thepresent government took charge, Chief Minister Parrikar went on an overdrive orderinginvestigations into corruption charges in several departments. These includedthe scam surrounding the implementationof the High security number plates (HSRP) and jobs in health, the mining department,animal husbandry (though surprisingly not in power). The ACB was called in tolook at all the rush hour job allocations running into thousands that was doneby the previous Congress Government in the last leg of its tenure in power. Sixmonths later, what was meant to be a clever move by BJP led Government forhandling over of high profile scams cases to anti- corruption bureau, the ACBhas merely filed interim reports in seven such inquiries and pushed the ballback to the governments’ court. As SP George confirmed, contrary to popularbelief, the ACB after filing its report will wait for the government to decideon the next course of action.
When askedabout terms of references being followed in investigating cases, which arehanded over to them by new government Bosco George said “there are no terms ofreferences, we conduct inquiry on the directions of government, our work isonly to submit report and government is final authority to take action or not”.
Since itsinception the ACB has been handed 759 complaints/cases of which 519 are closed.Which means, that it still has 240 cases pending, of which FIRs have been filedin just 14. Only in cases involving allegations of direct bribe taking byofficials can the ACB file FIRs on its own.
Currently,the ACB has a strength of fourteen personnel that comprises of oneSuperintendent of Police who is holding an additional charge, one Deputy-Superintendent of Police who is supervising over three police inspectors, onepolice sub inspector, four head constables and four police inspectors, who arecurrently investigating 240 cases. The ACB hardly has the manpower to workwhich is clearly indicated as three Police inspectors have to work on 80 casessimultaneously.
“We arealways facing shortage of staff at the ACB, recently when there was change ingovernment additional staff was given to us, even we are still short of onepolice sub- inspector” said Superintendent of Police Bosco George. When asked him about what criteria is being followed to recruit any staff for ACB Bosco said “fortunately I have a major say in selecting staffbased on the person’s past record, present abilities and in his futurecontribution to ACB is taken into account”.
But all goodmen have their limitations. The sad truth is that Goa’s most high-profileanti-corruption agency works with its hands tied behind its back.
