Cases registered by Anti-Corruption Bureau surge by 17%

Vijayawada: Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) which is creating sleepless nights to the corrupt officials in the State has registered 308 cases this year against 262 cases booked in 2016. Number of cases booked by officials increased by 17 per cent compared to previous year.

The ACB officials have conducted raids and booked cases against tainted officials working in the departments of Endowments, Panchayat Raj, transport, revenue and commercial taxes and seized properties worth crores of rupees disproportionate to their income.

Under the guidance and supervision of ACB DG R P Thakur, the officials are trying to root out the corruption with the help of people, who are coming forward to lodge complaints against the corrupt officials in the State. The ACB has registered 308 cases this year up to December 29 against the 262 cases registered in 2016.

The ACB officials have registered 137 trap cases in 2017 against 106 cases in 2016. But, the DA cases slightly decreased this year. The officials have booked 46 cases so far against 51 cases booked in 2016. Criminal misconduct cases almost doubled this year.

A total of 15 cases were booked against seven cases booked last year. Enquiries of corrupt officials and staff drastically increased this year. The ACB booked 67 cases till December 29 this year as against 26 cases last year. But, the surprise checks cases decreased this year to 43 as against 72 last year.

The ACB officials were shocked to find huge properties amassed by corrupt officials working in various departments. Surprisingly, some officials were running industries, transport offices, motor vehicle institutes and small scale industries.

These officials have registered the properties in the names of their wives, in-laws, brothers and friends. Flats, vacant plots, agriculture lands, luxury cars, trucks and gold articles valued at crores of rupees were noticed in the raids.

Following are some of the top officials booked in Disproportionate Assets (DA) cases this year. M Gangadharam, Engineer-in-Chief (Admin), R and B department, Vijayawada, B T V Rama Rao, tahsildar, Bheemunipatnam, Visakhapatnam district and Pamu Pandu Ranga Rao, Engineer-in-Chief, Public Health and Municipal Engineering department, Vijayawada, B Jagadeswar Reddy, Chief Engineer, AP Education Welfare and Infrastructure Development Corporation, Vijayawada, Golla Venkata Raghu, Director of Town and Country Planning, Gorantla, Guntur, Doddapaneni Venkaiah Naidu, Sub-Registrar, Gajuwaka, Vizag, Gopuram Muni Venkata Narayana, Joint Director, Education Department, Vijayawada and Vijaya Raju, Assistant Commissioner, (Lands) Endowments, Vijayawada.

Among the officials trapped by the ACB sleuths, Pamu Pandu Ranga Rao, Golla Venkata Raghu, M Gangadharam and Vijaya Raju possessed huge amount of properties worth crores of rupees which were several times disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Conviction rate in trap cases has slightly gone up from 61.53 per cent in 2016 to 62.90 per cent in 2017. Of the total 52 cases disposed of, 32 accused were convicted in 2016. Similarly, 39 accused were convicted in 2017 against total 62 cases disposed of.

Conviction rate in disproportionate cases increased to 100 per cent this year. Four accused were convicted against the four cases disposed of during the this year.

In 2016, six accused were convicted against the seven cases disposed by ACB. ACB Director General R P Thakur has appealed to the people to come forward and lodge complaints with the ACB officials if they face harassment.

He said the department is trying to bring down the corruption levels in the State and constructing new office buildings in all districts so that the officials will be available in their districts.

By MD Ameen