Influential lobby in Dispur shielding corrupt officials

GUWAHATI: At a time when the Assam Government is claiming to have adopted the 'Zero Tolerance' policy against corruption, an influential lobby of bureaucrats in Dispur has come in the way of giving the prosecution sanction to the various investigating agencies to file charge sheets against government officials involved in corrupt and criminal activities.

As per rule the investigating agencies such as the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the Bureau of Investigation of Economic Offence (BIEO) and the Vigilance & Anti-Corruption Department need to acquire prosecution sanction from the State government before filing charge sheets against public servants involved in corruption and crime.

The investigation agencies have been writing to the departments of State Government seeking prosecution sanction to file such charge sheets against corrupt officials. But the majority of such written pleas from the investigating agencies often gather dust in different tables and departments in Dispur thereby letting the accused officials to roam about freely.

The influential lobby, on various pretexts comes up with self-created official technicalities and lame excuses to stop probes. Fed up with this regular development, many of the investigating agencies have almost lost the track of investigation into various corruption and crime cases where top officials of the State Government are involved.

"We can only request the State Government. It is completely the State government's prerogative to give the sanction or not," a source in the investigating agencies said.

For example, the CID started its probe into the case of illegal transportation of coal in the State in 2018. The CID wrote to Dispur seeking prosecution sanction to file charge sheets against 11 government officials In 2019. But, the State Government is yet to approve its sanction.

In 2018, the investigation agencies were ready to file charge sheets against 15 officials — some of them in the rank of ADC — for their alleged involvement in 11 cases of gross siphoning of money meant for giving land compensation in a number of National Highway projects. Such cases took place between 2003 and 2017. But the State Government has not yet given its prosecution sanction to file the charge sheets against those corrupt officials.

Official sources also said that the influential lobby is taking advantage of the situation due to the non-existence of an effective monitoring mechanism to give the prosecution sanction against the corrupt officials. In other words, the lobby is also influencing the government not to put in place such a monitoring mechanism.

The latest probe against the question paper leak in SI (Sub Inspector) examination of the Assam Police is an acid test for the present regime in Dispur against corruption. Will the State Government now review the status of pending prosecution sanctions to file charge sheets against guilty officials? Or will Dispur again look the other way?

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