MUMBAI: Even as the complaints of graft are piling up with state’s anti-corruption bureau (ACB), Mumbai division, the amount of cases getting converted into FIR and eventually achieving convictions in the last four years are miniscule. While activists say it justified the inaction on part of the bureau as well as the government’s own vigilance (that works at the level of each department), the senior police officers say majority complaints either lacked the substance or are referred to government departments as mandated by law. Meanwhile, former top cops suggest immediate scrapping of the law that mandates permission of government departments to launch inquiries against their officers to take the conviction rate remarkably up.
As per the information received by Jeetendra Ghadge of The young Whistle-blowers Foundation through an RTI, suggested that between Jan 2019 and Nov 2022 out of 10,925 complaints received by ACB Mumbai Division only 276 inquiries were ordered and out of those inquiries, only 4 FIR's have been registered while 71 inquiries were closed without action and around 205 are still pending. “Thus ACB has ordered only 2.5% inquiries from the complaints they received whereas only 1% of the inquiries ordered were converted into FIRs. Further, ACB has forwarded 6098 complaints to respective govt departments when Bombay High Court order in a PIL has directed ACB to stop forwarding complaints and take action on its own. This is a clear violation of that order,” said Ghadge. He said on an average 90% of the cases registered by the ACB are trap cases where an accused is caught red-handed accepting a bribe, unfortunately looking at the conviction rate it's clear that all these accused get acquitted in court which is shocking. “Only 4 convictions were secured during the period whereas in 28 cases the accused have been acquitted. The ACB has failed to secure a single conviction in the last three consecutive years. How can a person caught red-handed get acquitted by the Court?,” he asked.
Meanwhile, Additional CP (ACB) Vijay Patil said a large number of complaints have to be forwarded to respective state government departments or bodies as either these complaints are just the copies of the letters marked to us, or departmental permission to proceed with the case is to be sought as per law. “In majority of such matters, departments do not refer the case back to us. Over and above this lot, a major portion of the complaints do not verify or not at all make any sense following which they too are closed. So, in all over 90 to 95% applications get sorted out this way. And in the rest of the genuine cases, a process of verification, trapping, and prosecution is conducted to take them to their logical end. After verification, the demand for graft and acceptance of graft are to be proved which is done by our department,” he added.
However, former DGP who headed the ACB for a long time Praveen Dixit said the law that mandates the permission of the appointing authority of the accused (officer or public servant) for prosecution should be scrapped immediately. “This will automatically take the conviction rate up by 50%,” he said. Similarly, Dixit said the onus of proof lies on the prosecution and not accused whereas in the cases of terrorism it is exactly opposite. “Corruption should be treated at par with terrorism. In the absence of an onus, benefit of doubt goes to the accused and they get acquitted on technical grounds. Similarly, the courts should try at least six cases every month. However, the fact is that there are cases that are languishing for 8 to 10 years in trials making a mockery of justice,” he said.
Dixit said in every government department the senior officer who is second in the hierarchy is supposed to act as chief vigilance officer. “This officer should conduct regular meetings to act on such complaints. ACB is just a small section of the entire force which has a few hundred officers. So on every departmental complaint, it is not expected to have ACB inquiry,” he added, pointing out that majority complaints are not either genuine or just out of malice or revenge.
