The Hindu : Other States / Madhya Pradesh News : Tainted officers find their place in Lokayukta notice board

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Tuesday, Feb 01, 2005

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Tainted officers find their place in Lokayukta notice board

By Our Staff Correspondent

Photo: A. M. Faruqui.

People take a close look at the list of tainted officers and public servants put up on the notice board of the Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta, in Bhopal on Monday.

BHOPAL, JAN. 31. The Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta has chosen to use the office notice board to display the list of tainted officers and public servants while the State Government continues to drag its feet on the issue of granting permission to prosecute them on charges of corruption.

A long list of tainted officers and public servants, which includes the names of the former State Minister,

Rameshwar Patel, IAS officers Ramesh Thete and Vinod Semwal besides a few Indian Forest Service

officers, was pasted on the notice board of the Lokayukta office this past Friday.

When contacted, a senior Lokayukta officer told this Correspondent that the list of tainted officers is on public display and the idea is not to just leave it there but also to upgrade it every month. There has been so much delay on the part of the State Government in granting permission to prosecute those against whom a detailed probe has already been conducted by the Lokayukta on charges of corruption, he said, adding that the decision to put the names of the tainted officers and public servants on the notice board was bound to exert moral pressure on the Government. Once the list of the tainted is in public domain, even a common citizen would be free to approach the apex court to file a public interest litigation (PIL) to force the prosecution of the corrupt officers and public servants under the anti-corruption Law, he asserted.

The Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta Justice, Ripusudan Dayal, had earlier told a section of the media: "It is unfortunate that the Government has not given permission to prosecute those whose names figure in the list (pasted on the Lokayukta notice board)." Many of these cases are pending for prosecution for the last many years, he pointed out.

Many senior Police officers, closely associated with investigations linked with corruption related cases, were unanimous in pointing out that the scourge of corruption cannot be curbed unless we do away with the system that allows the senior bureaucrats to stay in the background and use their subordinate officers to manipulate note-sheets to serve their acts of omission and commission. It is these subordinate Government servants, who mostly get caught and prosecuted, a senior IPS officer pointed out. Preferring anonymity he said, what is unfortunate is that even when the apex investigation agency of the State like the Lokayukta finds evidence to prosecute the senior bureaucrats, everything is done by their peer group and those at the helm of affairs in the State Government to protect them.

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Tainted officers find their place in Lokayukta notice board