Vigilance Commission reports not placed in Assembly for 17 years

The annual reports of Vigilance Commission have not been placed in the State Assembly for the past 17 years.

This was informed to the Forum For Good Governance by the government when it sought to know since when the reports had not been placed before the legislature under the Right to Information Act.

The A.P. Vigilance Commission was constituted to cause enquiry into corrupt practices, misconduct and lack of integrity by any public servant. As per business rules, the annual report has to be placed in the legislature, while listing out the cases where the Commission’s advice is not accepted and also the reasons for the same.

In a press release, secretary of the forum M. Padmanabha Reddy said since 1996-97 the reports have been gathering dust in the shelves of the Secretariat on the pretext that action taken reports (ATRs) were awaited from departments. He said the government was selectively taking action on the reports of the Commission and the cases of petty officials were processed and sent to Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for prosecution, while the big fish were rarely touched.

Referring to details provided by the Commission on its website, he said if 2,809 cases were referred to VC by government in 2012-13, he said the total number of cases might be up to 50,000 cases for the last 17 years.

The Forum for Good Governance appealed to the government to place all pending VC reports before the Assembly and contain corruption.