Officials of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) were shocked over the anti-departmental operations of Secret Manager D. Sobhan Babu who had been leaking key information to corrupt officials from the headquarters for the last two years.
The ACB maintains a list of government employees who have bad reputation and harass public demanding money.
“Officers and employees who are the most corrupt and amassed illegal wealth come under ‘Red’ category, officers who harass public are under the ‘Orange’ category and those who are not corrupt and have good reputation come under the ‘Green’ category. But we don’t know that an officer in our own office is in the ‘Red’ category,” said an ACB officer.
Interestingly, the ACB has created the Central Investigation Unit (CIU) to avoid leakage of information. Whenever the ACB receives information on a corrupt officer in a district, officers of the CIU who operate from the headquarters will initiate action and conduct the raid. The local officers will be kept away from the operation.
“But Sobhan Babu, who knew the details of the investigation and the list of the corrupt officers under surveillance, was leaking information alerting the accused. The manager spoke 250 times with eight officers, against whom the ACB had registered cases and was in contact more than 750 times on his mobile phones with those in the ‘Red’ and ‘Orange’ categories,” ACB Director General R.P. Thakur said. He spoke 74 times with M. Bala Prakash, who was trapped by the ACB in East Godavari district and contacted 45 times another officer Y. Satyanarayana of Srikakulam district. He was in regular contact with tainted officers in the Roads and Buildings, Municipal Administration, Forest, Stamps and Registration, Transport and other departments, the ACB sleuths said. “The manager, who was suspended on charges of criminal misconduct, leaked information to corrupt officers over his mobile phone several times. We began ‘cleaning process’ in our own office. Investigation is on against Sobhan Babu,” Mr. Thakur said.
